


And Love is All We Have

by M_Logolepsy



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Brainwashing, Creator!Au, Fluff, Government Agencies, Government Conspiracy, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Superhero!AU, Violence, fictionalized real-world consequences, maddie writes a superhero au just so she can ship all the grumps and have them do cool things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 17:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11719506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Logolepsy/pseuds/M_Logolepsy
Summary: In a world where Creators are people born with the incredible power to bring things to life and change the world around them, the Grumps are seen as superheroes. As a group of Artists, Writers, Editors, and Musicians alike, they fight for good and work to protect their city and make the world around them a kinder place. They are hope that life can be normal for Creators- until fear-mongering and a nefarious government agency make them public enemy #1.Now, a year after the fall and disappearance of the Grumps, a new group has risen to protect the city from Creator-attacks. By night, Ninja Sex Party may be a fearsome guardian but in the day, they're Brian Wecht, powerful CEO and Daniel Avidan, Brian's intern.When an attack goes horribly wrong and Danny finds himself at the mercy of the terrifying World’s Elite National Defense against Yttrohomo Sapiens, or WENDYS for short, both NSP's and the Grumps' worlds will change forever.Or, the art-based superhero/found family AU that no one asked for but I really wanted





	1. Prologue

“The Grumps? Man, I wish I could've seen them in action!” 

“They were really something, especially these days.” 

“They gave me hope that at least some of those awful creators weren't terrorists.” 

“They were amazing! They protected so many people, creators and normal humans. They kept us safe.” 

“The Grumps were dangerous! If they hadn't stopped, there’d still be attacks today!” 

“I always thought Egoraptor was so sick!” 

“Mortemer, she saved my life! The dead bugs were kinda gross, but Razzadoop was so nice, and they worked together so well…” 

“The Commander was always my favorite! Her birds were so sweet but I saw them take down an entire tank once!” 

“I liked Ross,” Some guy shrugged. “He seemed chill.”

“Whatever happened to them, anyway? It was like one day they were heroes and then the next they were outlaws.” 

“What happened to the Prophecy?” 

“Didn't they have that kid with them for a while? What happened there?” 

“I hope it was their choice to get rid of that editor kid. I mean, shame it was a kid, but everyone knows that they’re just dangerous. I hope they were smart enough to realize.” 

“Have you heard the rumors that the Prophecy is still around somewhere? People say that he’s still lurking.” 

“I bet he’s on the run. Those types always are.” 

“I don't blame him, you know, for running. If he is running. They hunt them like animals.” 

“All creators are animals. Everyone knows that. The Grumps probably got caged up by the World Elite. Serves them right, being what they are.” 

“The World Elite Nation Defense is just a cover up! They use hate speech and fear mongering as excuses to hunt innocents! Whole races can't be terrorists!” 

“I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't think creators are all bad. I mean, my aunt is an Artist. I just think they shouldn’t go around flaunting it. Ugh, like that Sexbang guy.” 

“Danny Sexbang is…. Well…” 

“So cool!” 

“Gross.” 

“My hero!” 

“I love him!” 

“He’s… a lot of things. I like Ninja Brian, though.” 

“Ninja Sex Party are the best!” A little kid cheered. “One time, they called laser dinosaurs to come protect the city!” 

Her father looked on in disgust. “They wear too much spandex. I’ve seen…” He trailed off, gesturing at his below-the-belt area. “... All too much of them.” 

“They’re dangerous, just like the Grumps. They attract danger to the city, get other creators to act out too! The only good they could ever do is getting themselves caught.” 

“Oh oh oh! I’ve met them!” An excited young man said. “I’ve met Danny, and Brian, and Ross, and all the other Grumps too! I even met the Prophecy, once! The only ones I never met were Spicy Boy and-” 

“Are you serious? Spicy Boy?” The man filming him asked. “That is not what the public called me.” 

“Well- Hey! Oh my gosh, are you him?” The man asked, his eyes lighting up. 

“I- No!” 

His partner, the one who had been asking the questions, winced. “Okay, Spicy Boy, time to go. Uh, you?” He said in a thick, Irish accent to the young man. “Act like you’ve never seen us.” 

The pair quickly moved away from the scene as the recognition in the young man’s eyes faded away. “I can't believe you dragged me out here, made me film this whole stupid exposition piece, only for me to get called Spicy Boy. Unbelievable.” 

“If it makes you feel better, they call me ‘Not JackSepticEye.”


	2. Chapter One

“Oh shit, it’s the CFO.” 

“Answer it!” 

“I can’t answer it, I’m kind of-” Brian told him, pulling the mask over his face. 

-in the middle of something. She’ll see the suit. Dan should answer it, since Acting’s his medium. Brian handed Dan the phone before getting ready to take a running leap down towards the chaos below. 

“Dan sh- What? Dude, no. I’m an Actor, not a voice actor!” 

It was a facetime call. 

“Goddammit, Bri-” 

Brian ignored him, running off the edge of the building they’d been staking out the situation from. Far below, he landed directly on top of the agent “arresting” a twelve year old for the crime of terrorism. Yeah, sure, World’s Elite. 

Dan swore, looking down at the phone. He took a brief moment to get into character- “I have a PhD,” He whispered to himself, focusing on getting the voice right. “I have a PhD” -and answered the call. 

“Hey, Brian, I was just wondering where you were, since we were supposed to have a meeting today?” Diana asked. She didn’t seem to suspect a thing. “I- What was that?” 

Dan tried to ignore the screams of Brian’s victims far below. “I was planning on attending, but I got stuck down town. Another Creator arrest is happening a block away from work. Dan and I went to lunch, so we’re trapped on the other side of it.” 

Diana frowned. “Oh, unfortunate. The recent upticks in public arrests of Creators is creating more hostility against a peaceful population that frankly doesn’t deserve it.” 

Why had Dan ever not liked her? She was such a cool- 

“How’s Dan holding up? I’d bet that he screamed the second he saw trouble.” 

Ah. Right. “Dan was-” Dan cleared his throat, trying to force down his true voice to focus on being Brian. I have a PhD. I have a PhD. “Dan was actually very brave. He’s saved my life many times.” 

“Oh, really?”

“Well, what would I do without his… Paper filing skills?” 

Diana looked amused. “Weren’t you the one to insist on the switch from paper to electronic?” 

Dan swallowed the panic that he felt and let his character take over. “Secretly, it was just to screw with him.” 

“I wouldn’t be surprised, you two have quite the relationship.” 

“Yeah, yeah we do. You know, Diana, I think we should actually pay him.” 

“I mean, if he’s really doing such a good job like you say,” Diana trailed off, running the numbers in her head. “I think I could find room in the budget.” 

Dan grinned, showing a flawless, Wecht-brand, ‘I just fucked someone over’ smile. “Great! We can discuss specifics when-” 

A ninja star lodged in the wall next to his head. That was a warning shot.

“-When I make it home if I live gottagobye!” Dan ended the call, dropping character and quickly throwing himself over the ledge and into the fray below. 

Well, post-fray. Dan landed in the center of a mess of fallen bodies, right next to a crying child. Dan kneeled next to him carefully. 

“Am I a bad person?” The kid asked. She had blood covering her dark skin, but she wasn’t bleeding. Dan tried not to think about it too hard. “I- I don’t- I don’t know if I should…” 

“Hey, listen to me, okay?” Dan said, taking her hands. “You’re not a bad person because of who you are, okay? A lot of people are going to try to tell you that, but they’re all wrong. Hold on to that, even when things get lonely. We’re gonna help you get on the run. What’s your medium?” 

“Actress,” She told him. 

Dan smiled, ignoring the sight of Brian drop kicking a man through a wall.

Nice, dude. 

He knew. 

“I’m an Actor, too! See, this’ll be so easy!” 

The girl giggled. 

“Okay, we’re gonna book it out of here right now, and Ninja Brian and I are gonna set you up with one of our friends, and she’ll hide you until you’re ready to head out on your own, ok?” Dan told her. 

“Y-Yeah, okay.” 

“Good! We going to fly off in a second, can you-” 

Without a second to consider it, a brilliant pair of white angel wings sprouted from the space in between her shoulders. “Ok.” 

Dan nodded, standing up slowly and leading her towards Brian. “We good here, or do you want to keep doing your thing for a while?” 

Brian shrugged noncommittally. 

“Alright, let’s head,” Dan told him. 

Without a little prompting, the girl took off into the air, Brian leaping up after her with the help of his suit. For the sake of flourish, Dan acted like he was Superman, taking into the sky before turning around to flip off the frustrated and dazed WENDYS agents far below. 

A little while later, after dropping the young Creator with a friend who helped kids like her make their way out of the city, he received a finger of his own. 

Brian, after changing out of his ninja costume into a much more inconspicuous business suit and his meeting with Diana, brandished a middle finger as he entered the room. “I’m not paying you.”

“My bad,” Dan said, an apologetic grin stretched across his face. 

“I should fire you,” Brian told him.

“You’d never.” 

“Still should, though.” 

“But then WENDYS would hunt both of our asses down and we’d be dead.” 

Brian pretend to mull over his options. “Hmm, death or the defamation of my company and my reputation?” 

“Touché,” Dan said with a shrug, walking towards the large window. “But who would protect the city?” 

“Someone qualified, maybe.” 

“We’re plenty qualified!” 

Brian joined him at the window, staring out at the people below. “You’re a lovable hobo and I’ve got a PhD.” 

Man, Dan really had nailed that impression.

“You only mentioned the PhD to rub it in.” 

“You’re right, but I have a point, too. The whole hero gig is reckless and stupid. WENDYS still doesn't buy that I'm not a Creator, and they know you’re one. They’re just waiting for the perfect moment to grab us.” 

Dan turned to look at his friend and partner in shock. “But if we don't do this, who will?” 

“Some other stupid creators, probably.”

“Bri, we have the power to help people,” Dan told him, for once deathly serious. “We gotta use it.” 

Brian stared back at him almost sadly. After a long moment, he replied, “You’re too kind for this sort of life.” 

Dan shrugged. “It’s too much effort to be an asshole.” 

“You know, for some random guy I picked up after he broke into my birthday party, you’re halfway decent.” 

“Love you too, Bri.” 

Brian shook his head. “What did you want to film tonight?”

Danny practically sprung to life, moving into the center of the room and spinning on his heel to face him. “Okay, imagine this,” He said, taking on his Danny Sexbang persona. Even without the blue jumpsuit, the change was so convincing that Brian had to remind himself that another person hadn't walked into the room. “I, the daring Daniel Sebangiel-” 

“Terrible name.” 

“And my partner, Ninjab Ryan of the shut the fuck up,” Danny said, singing the last few words and coercing Brian to stop talking in the process. 

Fuck Singers. 

Dan rolled his eyes and said, “Well, fuck Writers too. Stop narrating in my head when I’m on a roll!” 

Fine. Brian allowed him to continue.

“Thank you. As I was saying, we have faced countless foes, always besting them thanks to our endless skill and irresistible sexual energy! But now, many have come to slander us and some even dare to prosecute us for our powers! We must speak out against this! Truly, with our might, we can- No, must fight for the voiceless! We must urge our audience, our people, to speak up against the unjust laws meant to contain us!” 

Danny was a fool, especially if he believed that going against the Safety Act was a good idea. 

“Okay, asshole, voice your stupid fucking opinion,” Danny sang.

“You want to make a video going against the Safety Act?” Brian asked incredulously. “Dude. That’s suicidal.” 

Danny Sexbang melted away, leaving behind Dan Avidan in his wake. “Don’t dude me. This is important! Did you see what laws like that did to that girl today?” 

“Dan, we can’t fight the government! No one will change their vote, especially not if we fight against it. We’ll be political targets and targets of WENDYS. We’ll die for sure.” 

“Come on, Brian, this is-” 

Just then, a brilliant thought hit Dan; Why should he be so stubborn? Brian was only trying to make sure that he didn’t get absolutely ass-fucked by a government agency made to wipe out their species. He should just listen to Brian for once.

“This is…” Dan’s eyes glazed over for a moment, his passion-filled speech melted away. Brian couldn’t help but fear it wouldn’t rush back, even if he’d been the one to cause it and knew how it worked. Then, all at once, life rushed back to him. A frown painted his lips. “He’s.. You’re right. You’re right, it’s just not a good idea. We can just finish the new song this week and then just post that next week instead. I just… It’s whatever. I should go work on it.” 

Danny walked towards the door. He looked so sad that Brian almost undid everything, told him that-

Dan suddenly stopped. 

Oh. Dan knew he was a Writer. He sometimes forgot about that. 

“You motherfucker!” 

Brian may regret telling him that. Just maybe. 

“Stop telling me to think things!” Dan shouted. 

“Stop singing at me to do things!” Brian shouted back. 

Dan opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally, he said, “Okay, fair.” 

The two burst into laughter. It was so fucking weird, Brian thought. Here was this kid, some random man that he’d decided to save because he knew the damnation he was running from, and somehow he’d become someone he loved. Even if he was screwed, even if his sense of justice would get them killed one day, he couldn’t help but feel lucky. 

Suddenly, Dan hugged him. “You’re narrating.” 

Oh. My bad. 

“Love you too, Bri.” 

 

Brian hugged him back. 

In the same moment, a boom sounded in the distance. 

Danny ran to the window, spotting an explosion a few blocks away. “Holy shit, was that a bomb? Already? Dude, get your suit!”


	3. Chapter Two

“Hurry, Bri! We’ve gotta get out there now!” 

Brian had driven them as fast as he could to the scene, but he wasn't able to get his costume on. Naturally, because of the whole secret identity and the agency hunting them thing, it was crucial that they weren’t recognizable. Danny’s was easy- he was an Actor, after all, so not being recognized as Dan Avidan was literally his superpower. He still wore a costume, but it was mostly just for show. Brian, on the other hand, was not an Actor (well, he was an actor in high school, and he did improv comedy for a little while after college, but- well, you get the idea). Brian was easily recognizable as the CEO of Wecht Innovations, a premiere tech company dedicated to educating future scientists and producing high-quality products to encourage the study of science. In order to avoid this, they’d asked a friend for help. 

He just wished the Designer wasn't so into magical girls. 

Brian sat cross-legged in front of the costume and bowed to it. “I need to use you,” He told it, trying to not feel so fucking stupid. 

Suddenly, the costume sprang to life, unraveling and floating into the air. Brian stood in front of the fabric. It quickly swirled around him, getting closer and closer to his skin before it encapsulated him completely. Finally, it moved into place around him, dawning him in the gold-accented ninja outfit. 

He was ready to-

He turned around, going to give Danny a thumbs up, but he quickly realized he’d disappeared. 

Fucker. 

He grabbed his keyboard and strapped it to his back, scowling at no one in particular. One of these days, Danny was going to get destroyed by being impulsive, and Brian wasn’t going to care.

Well. Maybe. Maybe he’d care just a little bit. 

Shrugging the thought off, he moved silently through the streets, going unnoticed as he went. 

“Hey, did you see that?” 

Completely unnoticed.

“Actually, nevermind.” 

They broke around the corner, taking in the chaos in front of them. 

A group of five or six of what was obviously WENDYS agents dressed in black civvies was open firing on the civilians. Brian was certain that they were absolutely with WENDYS- no random group of Creators could be that coordinated, and none of them were taking the time to actually use any Creator abilities- but they were all armed with Artist-stylized weapons. They probably had some poor Artist kid locked in a dark lab somewhere, forced to become a pawn in the further blaming of innocent people for acts of terror they hadn’t committed. With a lump in his throat, he realized that this would be a justification for the next kid stripped of their life. 

Time to put a stop to that right fucking now. 

Quickly spotting his friend at the front of the group of fake-Artists, he launched himself into the air, thanking his sick suit as he did so, and carefully landed in the cliche superhero pose next to Danny. 

“Hey! Terrorists! What’s the point of worsening the world’s view on Creators, anyways?” 

They’re not Creators. 

Danny nodded, trying to narrate a thank-you but was only able to send the sentiment. It was fine, Brian got the jist. 

“Unless, of course, you were actually WENDYS people? Huh, weird, no way!” 

The agents didn’t waste a second to act surprised. One fired directly at Brian, which he easily dodged to slide behind the agent to knock him out. He turned to the rest, staring them down and daring the next one to shoot. When no one did, he shrugged, as if to say “suit yourself”, and readying his keyboard.

“Ninja Brian, it’s” Danny shouted, pumping his fist into the air. “Let’s go!” 

Brian, being a vigilante dedicated to justice, played some bloopy reggae jams. 

“Nin- Hey. Ninja Brian. I know you love your bloopy reggae jams but we’re trying to-” Danny frantically gestured at the group they were meant to be fighting. Thankfully, they were transfixed with their bit. Bless Actors. “Y’know? Be professional?” 

Brian shrugged. He deserved it for running off like an asshat.

“Okay, fine, I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you. Can we please get back to the kickass rockin’ jams?” 

Brian nodded, playing their rockin’ fight song.

“Fuck yeah!” 

Brian added a few more notes and a harmony to his song to make sure he got the right power up to properly unleash his asskicking. Once satisfied, he dashed forward, catching the look of surprise on one of the agent’s faces as the music from the keyboard continued after he stopped playing.

Aw, poor newbie. 

The newbie in question grabbed his head in horror when he heard Brian’s voice in it, making Brian almost feel bad when his kick collided with his head. The newbie crumpled to the ground easily. 

As Brian quickly finished off a second attacker with a quick dash, putting him in the perfect position to see a black WENDYS truck pulling up and unleashing at least six more agents. 

Brian couldn’t help but wonder how Danny was doing. 

Danny was doing alrig- JUST KIDDING BRI I NEED BACK UP PLEASE!!

Brian intensified the music, allowing him to kick off of an attacker’s face and launch himself towards his friend. He landed, managing to only stumble a little bit but he used the momentum to punch an agent and send them flying backwards and away from Danny. With the extra help, Danny was able to break off of the other two that had grouped up on him and regain his composure. 

“Hell yeah! Couldn’t do it without you, Ninja Bri,” Danny said, his grin growing in the face of his very recent near death experience. 

Brian rolled his eyes. He knew that already. 

Quickly, more and more agents began to flood the area. Brian figured they must’ve realized how the situation seemed and decided that bringing in more forces would make it easier to play it off as though he and Dan were the terrorists that needed to be fought against. Time to take off. 

He nodded to Danny, who shot him a thumbs up. “Alright, this was fun, but I don’t quite feel like sticking around and being framed for terrorism. How about you?” 

Brian shrugged. 

“Yeah, hard pass. We’ll be seeing you!” 

The pair backed away from the fight, leaping into the air and dis- 

Brian watched, shocked, as Dan froze midair before being thrown into the side of a flipped car below. 

“What the fuck?!” Dan yelled, looking around frantically as Brian landed on the roof of a nearby building.

A small figure, dressed head to toe in black with a mask to rival Brian’s, leered above him. They wore no brand of WENDYS, but there was something about the way that their ranks backed away from them that made Brian think that this new arrival wasn’t an ally. 

“Tell me who you are,” Danny told them, being sure to sing the last syllable to ensure an answer. 

The figure hesitated, moving to grab at his mask, before suddenly lashing out and-

Did they throw a car at me? 

Brian wasn’t sure, it was like the car had teleported above Danny. 

THIS FUCKER CAN TELEPORT CARS?! 

Oh shit. 

They’re-   
AN EDITOR FUCK!!!!   
-an editor. 

HOW CAN YOU KEEP UP THIRD PERSON IN A CRISIS LIKE THIS!! 

Brian ignored him, choosing instead to take off in a running start, sailing over the ledge he’d caught himself on and feet-first into the mystery assailant. The pair went toppling a few feet, but Brian managed to catch himself and land on top, pinning them beneath him.

At least, he had tried to. Brian felt a jerk at his entire body, and when he caught his bearings a moment later, he was underneath them. 

Two can play at that game. 

The attacker’s momentary surprise to the voice in their head was just enough to allow Brian the time to slide from underneath them and flip them into the ground. 

Who are you, false ninja? 

Brian couldn’t help but blink at the- Was it even an intrusion? He wasn’t sure how to describe the words followed by the tiny cartoon burger that had made it’s way into his brain. It was hard to describe the sensation he got from the words. They weren’t like a Writer’s narration. Instead of that strange, second-sense like feeling at the edge of his brain, the words seemed to appear in his sight, like su- 

It was a little difficult to finish the thought when he received a taste of his own medicine as he was flipped upside-down and dropped into the asphalt. He focused on narrating one last message before he buried himself in winning this fight. 

I could ask the same thing. 

And just like that, Brian flung himself into the air with a surge of a particularly sick-as-fuck guitar rift and sent a quartet of ninja stars into the attacker.   
The attacker didn’t even flinch. They shielded their chest with their hands and then jerked them forward and outward, sending the ninja stars back at Brian. He dodged them easily with a leap and threw himself forward to kick them again, but he found himself frozen in the air. Every move he tried to make seemed to move- oh, frame by frame. Editors. He was easily thrown backwards into the building behind him. 

He couldn’t help the groan that escaped him when he stood. The suit could only absorb so much of the shock of a fight like this. Despite the pain, he stood up and prepared himself to charge again, this time summoning a more heroic backtrack to swell behind him, and- 

BRIAN, FUCK- I- BRIAN!!

Danny’s terrified voice helped to clarify the panicked narration in his head. “BRIAN!! HELP!!” 

In a horrifying moment, Brian turned his head, catching sight of Danny- his best friend, his teammate, the one person who knew everything, his Dan- flanked by an upwards of ten WENDYS agents and being dragged towards the open back of the black truck. He was putting up a fight, because of course he was, but every time he threw an agent off of him, another took their place. There were four of the fuckers on his arms alone. As he sang, agents forced their hands over his mouth to silence him. He was plain and simply outnumbered, and he couldn’t fight back. 

How many others had panicked like that, fought against the end while no one gave a shit? 

He forced down the bitter taste of familiarity, planted his feet, and sprinted as fast as he could towards Danny. He just had to beat them to the truck. He just had to stop them from locking Danny away and they could get the upperhand. He just had to- 

He froze, but not of his own volition. The Editor. 

The next few moments blurred together. Brian had distantly heard his music swell and fall into chaos as he lost control of the notes. The blaring halt had forced the Editor and the others to their knees due to the screeching pain it caused, but it was too little too late. The agents pushing Danny onto the metal bench and the cuffs around his wrists were too far away, too far into their task. Brian broke free of the freeze-frame he was caught in and sprinted as fast as he could toward the truck.

One moment of clarity pushed through the panic induced fog. 

Dan’s eyes met Brian’s as he fought against his restraint and a muzzle was forced over his mouth. 

I… Shit, Bri, what if I never see you again? I don’t know what to say. How do I- I don’t know what to say! How do you narrate this so well? Bri, this might be it, fuck. Just… I love you. Don’t forget that? I’m sorry, I-

Brian watched in horror as the doors slammed shut and the Editor appeared in front of him once again. 

Fuck it. He was going to take care of this asshole, and then he was…

Fuck. What could he even do? 

What am I going to do?!


	4. Chapter Three

Just… I love you. Don’t forget that? I’m sorry, I know I get over the top and I go for things I shouldn’t but…

You would’ve interrupted by now. You can’t hear me. 

Oh my god, you can’t hear me! Shit, shit, I’m- 

I’m- 

I’m on my own. I’m going to die. 

As Dan slowly blinked the dark spots out of his vision, he genuinely was certain he was going to die. He forced his breath in and out as slowly as he could and focused on keeping a coherent dialogue. It’s what Brian always did, and he needed that little bit of normalcy right now, even if it wasn’t real. 

He really hadn’t meant to become a Writer, especially not to fully come into it like this. Of course, he’d heard that any Creator could pick up any art they had an interest in learning, and he and Brian had actively been trying to grow his Writing ability so that they could communicate when… When shit hit the fan, so they could warn each other if one of them got grabbed, dragged off to...

“FUCK!” Dan yelled. 

Well, tried. Despite his best efforts, his words didn’t meet his own ears. He tried to open his mouth wider, to push whatever was keeping him quiet away, but he couldn’t move his jaw. 

A muzzle? Were they fucking serious? 

He let a huff out through his nose. That was fine, he decided. His voice was only one of his abilities. He wasn’t just a one-hit Creator. He focused on himself and his presence and began to act like he was stronger than he was. He squared his shoulders, sitting up a bit and flexing- 

“AHH!” He cried as electricity ripped through his body. 

He frantically looked around, spotting his hands strapped down to the metal bench he was sat on. Of fucking course. That was fine, as long as he didn’t force against it they couldn’t know he was trying to get out, right? 

He pictured himself smaller, like he was just a small child. He curled into himself, imagining that the cuffs were laughably large around his wrists, and- 

The metal cuffs shrunk to meet his rapidly shrinking arms and emitted another shock. This time, Dan bit down so hard he swore he felt his teeth break. The voltage was only getting worse, and he didn’t think there was any way around it. He lost his focus, quickly snapping back to his normal size. The cuffs didn’t get any larger, instead practically crushing his wrists and continuing to shock him. 

Dan’s vision went entirely white.

After a long, long moment of holy fucking oh my god I can’t think it hurts so bad, it finally stopped. Danny slumped against the back of the truck, his chest heaving.

He took a deep breath. 

And then another. 

And then another. 

Finally, he let out a sob. He was so fucked. There was no way out of this. He was doomed to be killed, or caged like an animal, or fucking brainwashed like in those creepy WENDYS theory forums, and he had no way out. 

Everything he had run from his entire life, everything that Creators had warned him about since his first shitty music teacher had told him to never sing like that again, or his friends in that improv group whispering in hushed voices about what could happen to runaways like him, or even from Brian on that first night that he stumbled into him, saved his life for no other reason than that he was just kind. 

He should’ve listened to Brian. The irony of him telling himself that now was not lost on him, but it was true. He should’ve listened. Because he hadn’t, now, he was going to…

Danny sighed. He didn’t want to spend his last quiet moments thinking about how he was doomed. Instead, he thought about that first night. Running away from this exact fate. Literally. He could remember the feeling of asphalt under his shoes as he darted into the nearest doorway. He was lucky- it was a club, crowded with people that he could easily get lost in. He acted natural- literally- and shorter, so he could disappear better. He’d pretend that he’d known whoever the person the club had been rented out by that night, slipping past security with relative ease.

It had been so easy, until this random dude with gray hair and a business suit, a picture of someone successful and well off caught his eye. He’d been terrifying right away, but he didn’t pin why until later, when he realized that he’d looked up to talk to him, even though he was pretending to be 5’11”. Then, when the WENDYS agents had burst in, he’d heard him in his head for the first time. He’d said-

DON’T WORRY. WE’RE COMING TO GET YOU. 

Wait, what the fuck, that wasn’t Brian’s voice, was that even a- 

The entire truck creaked as it suddenly jolted to a stop and fell to the side. Dan let out a yell as he hung from the now-ceiling of the truck by his wrists. He looked around, panicked, trying to see what had happened. 

On the far end of the truck, a small, brilliantly blue butterfly crawled under the door to the back of the truck. It was gorgeous as it slowly drifted over to him, landing gently on his arm. 

Before he could laugh or cry or freak out in a way that any rational person would, another butterfly, this one orange, slipped through a crack. Another bug, a dark green beetle, followed it. Yet another followed behind it. Like a dark tide of crawling legs, bugs and insects pushed their way into the truck, all swarming around him.

It was around this point that Dan wished the restraints would get off so he could properly freak the fuck out. 

The bugs all halted, standing around him and glaring up at him. Then, slowly, like it could hear his thoughts, the blue butterfly crawled up his arm and weaseled its way beneath the handcuffs. Hundreds of the bugs followed it, flying up towards him in a swarm and pushing under the restraints. The handcuffs creaked and released another shock, but this time Dan didn’t feel it- the bugs had absorbed the blow for him. Suddenly, the cuffs broke totally, sending Dan hurtling to the floor. 

A few of the bugs crawled up his neck towards the muzzle, but, yeah, no, Dan was not having that. He slapped them away quickly. The group of them stopped, looking up at him almost fucking questioningly. He frantically shook his head no at them. They seemed to shrug, as if to say “It’s your funeral”, before filtering back over towards the back of the truck. 

What the actual fuck. 

Dan followed their path towards the back door, watching in awe as the majority of them wedged their way into the lock keeping the door shut. The door snapped under the sheer force of them, allowing the back doors to fall open.

There, standing at the mouth of the door, stood a woman dressed in black. The bugs quickly flocked to her, and even though it was terrifying, Dan couldn’t help but admit that it was a sight. The beetles settled around her shoulders like a terrifying cape. The blue butterfly settled at the nape of her neck, resting on it as though it was a necklace, while the other butterflies flitted around her head and settled in her dark hair. 

She stared at Dan, and he couldn’t help but flinch under her gaze. “Don’t worry,” She told him. “They’re all dead.” 

Before Dan could properly break down exactly how that did not make him feel any better, a man ran up to the woman. “Suz, did you find Kevin?” 

The woman- Suz?- shook her head, “No, he’s not here. I think I found another creator, though.”

The man turned to give Dan a once over. “He’s gotta be a Musician, right? Check out that muzzle…” 

“He had handcuffs on, the electric kind. He’s definitely an Actor.” 

“Actor and Musician with a stupid blue costume…” The man said, trailing off. Recognition flashed in his eyes. “Holy shit, they got Sexbang.” 

Stupid costume? Dicks. 

“Well, he’s definitely a liability. We can’t take him with us,” Suz told the man. 

What? 

“What?” The man asked, mirroring Danny’s own thoughts. “We can’t leave him here. You saw the transcript of what they wanted to do to him, too, right? They wanted to rip... “ 

The pairs’ eyes slowly drifted down to Dan’s crotch area. 

Dan let out a gasp of sheer horror as his eyes blew wide open. 

They could not let them rip his dick off! They couldn’t leave him here!

Both of them suddenly looked at his face. “Is he a Writer too?” Suz asked.

“I didn’t think so, but I think the ninja is. Maybe he passed some stuff on to him?”

The woman shrugged, but then slowly turned to her friend- partner? Dan wasn’t sure. “...What if he’s an editor?”

The man visibly tensed. 

Danny shook his head frantically. He wasn’t like that, he wasn’t an Editor! Everyone knew that they were the worst of the Creators, almost always going mad with power. He wasn’t like that. 

Suz watched him carefully. “That’s how an Editor would react.” 

Before the man could reply, a small green bird landed on his shoulder and began tweeting frantically. 

“That’s Holly, they’re on their way,” The man said, turning to leave but wincing as he looked back at Dan. “What do we do about him?” 

Suz shrugged. “Better we have one than they do. Let’s go, Sexbang.” 

Danny sighed in relief, darting towards the back of the truck after the mysterious pair. The bugs swarmed around them, blotting out any day light to provide a tunnel for cover. Dan tried to not freak out, especially since he’d only just barely escaped certain doom. Better this than nothing, right? 

The man pulled out a notepad, frantically doodling while he went. Then, seemingly satisfied, he ripped out the page and threw it in front of them. Dan watched in amazement as it slowly unfolded and grew, turning into a large fluffy cloud. To complete the look, a cartoonish grin spread across the front. 

“Cute,” The woman remarked. 

“Get on!” The man told them both, pulling Suz on and gesturing for Dan to jump in. 

Dan quickly darted in after them and gripped the sides of the drawing-brought-to-life like it could disappear at any second. Slowly, it ascended into the sky. When Dan finally was able to swallow his fear and look below, he could just barely make out the turned-over truck surrounded by two more WENDYS trucks and a sea of agents below. They’d just barely escaped death. 

Danny slumped against the side of the cloud-ship, letting out a terrified giggle. 

“Uh, maybe the mask is cutting off oxygen or something?” The woman wondered. “He seems to be losing it.”   
“Yeah, okay, let me look at it,” The man said, leaning towards him.

Dan almost instinctively flinched away from his touch. 

IT’S ALRIGHT, I’M JUST TRYING TO HELP. 

He’d heard Writers narrating before (obviously, Brian never shut up) , but what this voice in his head was was something completely different. It was almost like he was reading it, like it was written across the bottom of his vision. 

Like subtitles at the bottom of a TV screen. 

“I’m Barry,” The man told him. “I’m not trying to freak you out or anything, but to get this thing off I’ve got to reach behind your neck.

Dan gave Barry a once over before leaning forward to let him work at the muzzle. After a slow second and a loud clicking noise, Barry slowly pulled the muzzle away from him. 

When Suz turned back to see what he’d accomplished, her eyes widened. “Holy shit.” 

Dan turned to follow her gaze, spotting the muzzle. At the base of it, where it had snapped into the back of the neck, there was a long, thin needle. “Was that… Dude, was that in me?” 

“Uh…” Barry looked down at it, watching as a droplet of blood dripped down the needle. “Shit, yeah, it was. Suzy, was there anything like this on the leak?” 

Oh. Her name was Suzy. Duh. 

She shook her head. “We have to figure out what this stuff is. Do we know any trustworthy scientists or anything?” 

“Oh, Brian is a scientist,” Dan said, almost to himself. “Asshole has a PhD and makes sure everyone knows it.” 

Suzy and Barry both turned to him, excitedly asking questions, but Dan stopped listening. He felt the panic rising in his chest as he realized Brian probably thought he was dead or in danger of being so. He also realized that, due to their shitty little co-dependence thing they’ve got going on, Brian was probably about to do something stupid and rash. 

Oh, fuck. 

“Hey! Fuck, wait, turn this cloud thing around!” He shouted, though it was less threatening and more heartbreakingly desperate. 

Suzy and Barry, halfway through a million different questions, ground to a halt. “What? Why?” Suzy asked.

“Brian’s going to do something dumb and I have to let him know I’m okay!” 

Barry and Suzy shared another nervous look. Fuck these two and the shit they tell each other in their stupid little meaningful glances! 

“Okay, we’ll contact Brian soon,” Barry told him, his hands stretched out in front of him to try and mediate Dan. “We just have to go meet up with the other Grumps first, alright?” 

“No, I have to tell him, n-” Dan began, slowly coming to realize what Barry had said. “The Grumps? As in…” 

Not to repeat himself, but… 

“What?! That’s- No! No way!”


	5. Chapter Four

AS WEIRD AS I COULD SEE THE SITUATION BEING, DANNY YELLS ABOUT IT A LOT. 

“Barry, you’re yelling,” Suzy told him quietly. 

WHAT? DICK-MAN IS YELLING. I’M THE ONE NARRATING. 

Suzy nudged him, tapping her temple. “No, up here. He’ll notice.” 

Oh. Ha, capslock. My bad. 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Suzy laughed, not bothering to keep her voice down. “Where’s the keyboard?” 

“What?! What the fuck? Wh- What keyboard? What are you talking about? Aren’t you guys like, dead? You guys died,” Dan rambled from his place in the corner of the cloud. He’d pushed himself into the far corner of the cloud, curling in on himself as much as he could.

It isn’t really successful? The cloud is only, like, ten feet across. It’s probably more about the sentiment, you know? 

Barry patted his shoulder gently. “Don’t worry, buddy. The only dead things here are Suzy’s little buddies.” 

Dan pouted, schooching further into the cotton of the the cloud. “I’m not in the mood to be touched.” 

Barry shrugged. “Suit yourself.” 

Dan tucked his knees into his chest, staring over the side of the cloud. After a long moment, he gasped, turning to stare at Suzy. “Wait, those bugs are dead? What the fuck kind of necromancy shit is that!” 

“Man, why does everyone think I’m a necromancer? That’s not a Medium!” 

“Don’t even pretend you don’t love it,” Barry said. 

Suzy shrugged, and admitted, “Okay, yeah, I do.”

Suzy’s an Artist, and she really likes taxidermy, especially on small creatures. Little spooky buddies! They grow on you. 

“No, no, I do- I do not want any on me or growing- Just, no,” Danny said, shuddering. He turned to Barry, studying him. “What kind of Creator are you?” 

I’m a Writer, duh, I’m only in your head right now. 

Danny squinted. For some reason, he did it again and again, then tried to use his hand to block the bottom of his vision. 

“You look stupid,” Barry told him. “Why’re you doing that?” 

“I don’t know,” Danny answered, still squinting and playing with his eyes. “It’s like- Are you really a Writer?” 

“Yeah, dude. What else would I be?” 

“It’s like- Brian’s a Writer, and it’s different.” 

“What, you thought only Musicians have styles?” 

Danny went to say something else, but suddenly the cloud jerked. 

“Oh shit!” Suzy yelled as the cloud tilted violently. “Wearing already?”

“Looks like it!” Barry yelled back, gripping the edge of the cloud. 

Danny floundered, almost tipping off before he grabbed the side. “Woah! What’s happening!?” 

“Animated stuff only lasts a few frames!” Barry told him, fumbling around for his notepad. “I just need to find-” 

The cloud tilted again, sending Barry’s notepad over the edge. “...My notebook. Shit.” 

To Dan’s utter horror, which he expressed eloquently by screaming his head off, the cloud jerked and evaporated, the trio fell into free-fall. Barry tried to not let the overwhelming fear of the situation consume him, so he could- 

I’M GONNA DIE AGAIN OH FUCK  
I’M GONNA DIE AGAIN OH FUCK  
I’M GONNA DIE AGAIN OH FUCK

-focus. 

DANNY SEXBANG, PLEASE STOP NARRATING!! 

Thankfully, Danny listened long enough for Barry to summon Burgie. 

When he and Dan hit the soft bun, it took Dan a full minute to open his eyes, and when he did, he gasped and nearly flung himself off the thing. “Why the fuck?! How did you manage to draw that so fast?? I thought you dropped your notepad.” 

Barry shrugged, making sure to look away from Dan before he answered. “It was prerendered! We’re close enough for Burgie to meet us.” 

“Wait, how is it…” Danny trailed off for a second before he whipped his head around to stare at him with a face that was clearly trying to hold back laughter. “Burgie?! You call it Burgie? Oh my god, dude, Burgie-” 

“We’re here!!” Suzy called as she floated up to meet them on her army of bugs. She stood atop them as though she was Wonder Woman mid flight, which made Barry laugh.

Danny looked below, trying to figure out what they were referring to. “Where is here?”


	6. Chapter Five

The group landed, and Danny couldn't help but feel like they’d made a mistake. He recognized this neighborhood. It’d been where he first stayed when he came to New York, a little urban nook far away from the center of the city but always buzzing with life. It used to be a safe haven for Creators. 

As they walked, he traced his hands over the lone remaining mural, a gorgeous piece done by some of the younger Artists in the area. It featured what the area used to look like, with people dancing in the street and chalk drawings that seemed to be caught in the middle of swaying in time with them. Children were playing, parents were doting after them, and lovers were holding hands in the street. 

Dan let his hand drop away from it when he reached the scorched end of the wall. 

“Why are we here? This is the Creator’s Grove...” He wondered, scanning over the rubble of the area to see if he was missing something. 

“This is where we live,” Barry answered. He nearly tripped over a collapsed telephone wire in the process, but he caught himself. “You know the story of this place, right?” 

Danny nodded. “I lived here when it happened. This’s the last place I lived before Brian.” 

Suzy and Barry shared a glance. 

“Did you… Were you here when the…” Suzy struggled to find the right words, stumbling to figure out a way to lighten the blow while still asking for what she wanted to know. 

Dan figured it out. “Yeah, I was. Well, not when they dropped the firebombs, but that’s why I even ran into Brian in the first place. I tried to fight against WENDYS for a little bit, but I got chased out.” 

“Huh,” Suzy said. “I never thought you’d be the type to run away.” 

Dan shrugged. “I used to be smarter.” 

The awkward silence that followed was enough to make Dan squirm. “So, uh, how’d you end up around here?” 

“Oh, right,” Barry began. “We heard about this little area around the time we were forced back on the run and thought it’d be a good place to hide out. When we got here, though…” 

Suzy stared back towards the mural, and said, “We stayed because no one else cared enough to bury the bodies, and then we didn’t want to just leave them to be forgotten. Arin visits them every day.” 

No one was really up to talking much more after that. They climbed through the toppled remains of the buildings, finally making their way to the least-destroyed buildings towards the end of the street. All that remained of the bustling area was an old sub shop and a set of apartment buildings. They entered the one furthest to the left. 

The way the stress melts off Suzy and Barry as they climb the cramped staircase to their destination reminds Dan of Brian in a way he really isn’t willing to think through. All the more reason to get through this as fast as possible. 

Finally, they exit the stairwell and head into a hallway of apartment doors. The first door on the left is already open, and the contrast between the empty city corner and the bright and warm space hits Dan like a truck. Every inch of the place is covered in photos and drawings, all of the same seven or eight people. It’s as if a family photo album exploded on the walls, sentiment and nostalgia filling the place like smoke and ash. It definitely looked destroyed, but less because of a will to destroy but more because many people shared the space. Paintings, sculpey, paper, and empty take-out boxes seemed to be a popular commodity. The whole mess seemed to ooze the aesthetic as a big, crowded family. Despite that feel, only two other people were visible in the room- a man curled up on the couch, fast asleep, and a woman anxiously to a… was that a bird? 

When she turned to face them, her face lit up. “Thank god! Lieutenant Birb lost track of you! Did you find him?” 

Suzy is the first to answer, shaking her head sadly as she approaches her and kisses her on the cheek. “He got away before we arrived. We thought he was in the truck, but…” 

The woman (that’s got to be the Commander, right? Dan really wished he paid more attention to the news. It’d’ve been helpful in identifying the members of the Grumps around him now) hushed her gingerly and wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t worry. He’s alive, and that’s what counts. We’ll find him.” 

Suzy nodded and hugged her back. 

Barry slid past Dan, swinging past the two women to kiss Holly on the cheek before descending on the man (definitely Ross. He was asleep with sunglasses on). He kissed Ross’s forehead. 

Ross stirred, opening his eyes and blinking up at him. “Barry? What time is it?” 

“It’s 3 pm-ish, Ross.” 

“Oh. Whoops,” Ross said, sitting up. He looked around sleepily, finally spotting Dan. “What’s dick-man doing here?” 

Dan couldn’t help the huff he let out. “I’m- Dude, why do you all call me dick-man?” 

The Commander (maybe?) said, “Your name is Sexbang. Your whole bit is dick jokes. It just makes sense.” 

The four of them snickered. 

“Laugh all you want, at least my world-famous superhero group isn’t called the Grumps.”

“Okay, ‘Ninja Sex Party,’” Ross answered. When he didn’t get a response, he quickly noticed that his three friends were glaring at him. “What?” 

Barry sat down next to Ross, wrapping his arm around him and mockingly asking him, “How’d we get called the Grumps, Ross?” 

He shrugs. “They were all like, ooohh Rossssss, what’s this kickass group called and I just was like, well, I didn’t have any idea so I just said the first shit that came to my head.” 

Suzy sat down on Ross’s other side and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re an asshole.” 

“Ha ha, you still love me though.” 

The Commander dramatically sighed, leaning over the back of the couch and kissing Ross’s head. “Unfortunately.” 

Towards the back of the room, a small door opened and a man walked out. He seemed just as tired and out of it as Ross, but he was just functioning enough to join the group on the couch and lazily lean his head on Suzy’s shoulder. “Hey, everyone. Dick-man?” 

Suzy lazily answered, “We saved him from certain death. Some of us actually got up before three today.” 

“Oh, sick. Hey Dick-man, I’m Arin.”  
“Oh shit! I didn’t- I’m Holly!” The Commander called, waving to finish the greeting. 

The Grumps weren’t what Dan was expecting at all, he realized then. Instead of this terrifying group of powerful Creators, they were more like a handful of lost people that cared a lot about each other. It was so sweet, but it made him feel like an outsider. It made him miss- 

Oh, fuck. He’s mentioned Brian about a million times in the past few hours they’ve been apart. It had only been, like, four hours at the most. He just wanted to get out of here and back to his home. 

“So, like, it’s been cool meeting you and all, but I’ve really gotta get back home,” Dan told them, gesturing to the doorway he was only a step past. 

“What?” Barry looked at him strangely. “Dude, you know WENDYS is hunting for you, right?” 

“Nothing new.” 

“They’ll be out for blood if you’ve just gotten away,” Arin told him. For someone he literally just met, he was already concerned about him. Aw. “You should lay low for a little while at least. Just to-”

Suddenly, the front door slammed shut. 

“Oh, Jack and Vernon must be back,” Holly announced. 

Dan gave her a look. “What makes you say-” 

The door slammed open. “TURN ON THE TV!” 

“Oh, that’s Jack,” Barry told Dan, pointing to the man who had yelled in the Irish accent and was clutching a large camera. Then, he pointed to hipster-looking man, saying, “And that’s Vernon.” 

“Oh!” Jack said, waving. “Hi, Dick-ma-” 

“There’s no time!” Jack shouted. “Turn on the TV right now!” 

“Wait, where were you guys?” 

“I mean I had this story exposition-based intro sequence through dialogue I really wanted to try but I’m not sure it really-”

“No time! Turn! On! The! TV!” 

Quickly, Jack ran behind Dan and flicked on the TV. Dan moved out of the way, sitting down on the ground in front of the couch. The television flickered on, displaying two perky newspeople and, to Dan’s utter horror, a picture of Brian. 

“If you’re just tuning in, tonight, a video of the CEO of Wecht Innovations, Brian Wecht, recently aired on the Ninja Sex Party Youtube channel.”

Danny’s entire face went white. “They… How do they know it’s Brian, his… His suit…” 

The newscast cut to what was presumably the video from the channel. Sitting alone at center camera was Brian. His eyes were rimmed with red, his hair uncharacteristically disheveled. 

Danny felt his heart sink. 

“Hey. I’m Brian Wecht, and I’m Ninja Brian from Ninja Sex Party. I mean, duh, I’m on this channel,” Brian told the camera with a level of obvious dickish-ness that made Danny laugh despite himself. 

“Hey, are you-” Barry began, but Danny quickly shushed him.

The video continued. 

“You’re watching this right now because Danny… Uh,” Brian pauses, looking down at something in his lap and then back at the camera before closing his eyes and sighing. “I had this whole shit written out, because that’s… That’s what I do, right? I’m a Writer. But I can’t just read this and say everything like it’s a script I wrote with him giggling like an asshole over my shoulder because he’s not fucking here. I don’t fucking know where he is.”

Danny gasped in horror, frantically wiping the tears from his eyes. “Oh my god, he doesn’t know I’m okay, I fucking have to tell him right now, he’s gotta know where I am!” He screamed, lacing his hands through his hair in panic and frantically moving between the TV and the door.  
“Dude, this- Danny, this is old. It’s been on for an hour now,” Vernon told him. “Just- Just watch.” 

Danny nods slowly, turning back to the TV. He’d missed something. Brian was crying now. 

“This is what it’s like to be a Creator. We’re not fucking monsters or… Less than human, like people say we are. We’re just trying to survive. We have to hide. We have to live in constant fear that everything we are… that everything we love could be taken away without a second thought. I…” Brian trails off, not even bothering to wipe away his tears. “I love Danny. He is the only good thing about being what I am. He is always headstrong and stubborn but always, always caring and kind. He wants to protect people... Not to survive, or to get anything, or it’s expected. He just does it because he can’t stand the thought of people getting hurt. He is the best thing in my life, and he can just be taken away because, fucking legally, we’re a danger to society. What the fuck is dangerous about someone like that?”

He paused, taking a few panicked breaths. His face hardened.

“I know that by releasing this, I will almost definitely lose my company. WENDYS will come for me and whatever hell Dan’s in right now, I’ll be there by the end of the hour. Sooner, probably. And, you know, fuck it. Fuck it! I’d rather be dead with him then keep fucking hiding and let him die in vain. Just… We’re people. We’re just people. See you soon, Danny.”

The video cut back to the newscasters. “This video was released about two hours ago, and since then, the World’s Elite National Defense against Yttrohomo Sapiens, coloquilly referred to as WENDYS, has surrounded the several Wecht Innovations buildings in the area as well as Wecht’s home, but as of yet, no arrests have been made as Wecht himself has yet to be found.”

Dan gasped. “Oh my fucking god, I know where he is, we have to go save him right fucking now.” 

“Fuck,” Holly swore. “He’s so right, let’s go.” 

“Oh shit, really?” Dan exclaimed, his grief and dedication momentarily interrupted by his shock. “I- Fuck, I didn’t think you’d have my back so fast.” 

“I- Well, I mean…” Arin began, looking to Holly. “Are we really doing this?” 

“We’re totally gonna die,” Ross told the group matter-of-factually. “Like, I’m all for whatever you guys want to do, but we’re gonna die.” 

“Oh my gosh, of course we are!” Holly yelled. “Has anyone ever stood up for us like that? If we leave him to die after speaking out like that, every other Creator will think that we’re doomed to this. We have to show them that it can get better. That’s what we always fought for.” 

Suzy nodded, running towards the small closet in the corner. She reached in and carefully ran her hand across what was inside. More bugs sprang to life and crawled out of the closet. 

Dan tried not to wretch. 

“What are you all waiting for?” Suzy called. “You heard her, let’s get going!” 

The Grumps sprung into action- Arin quickly coloring in a picture before pulling a Megaman-Style gun out of the paper, Ross drawing a pair of sick sunglasses that he hastily dawned, Holly gathering a group of stone birds that, upon her touch, came to life and putting on a flight helmet of some kind, and that was only the preparation Dan could keep track of- but Barry stood still, staring at the ground. Danny didn’t know what to say, or how to ask him what he was doing. When the Grumps returned, all armed and prepared, they looked at him. 

“You okay, Bar?” Ross asked gently. 

Barry looked up at him. He looked terrified. “They’ve got Kevin. They told us that if we tried to come back, to do what we did before, we’d never see him again.”

Ross’ shoulders drooped. He took Barry’s hand and squeezed it. “I know. We haven’t seen him since that, though. They can already do anything to him.”

Barry looked horrified. “That’s not making me feel any better about this.”

“I wasn’t done!” Ross said indignantly.

It drew a laugh out of Barry, albeit a sad one. 

Ross continued, “We can’t let that happen to someone else. Like… Dick-man is a lot, but I couldn’t watch that kind of loss happen to him. It’s all fucked. I guess- I guess we have this one shot to fix this for someone else. We have to take it.” 

“Goddammit, Ross,” Barry said, sighing. 

“Ugh, no, please, that was the worst catchphrase. Can we not bring that back?” 

“Only if I can borrow a sketchbook.” 

“What happened to yours?” 

“Rebellious storm cloud.”

Ross smiled and shook his head. “Go for it.” 

And, just like that, they were on their way to die. 

Probably.


	7. Chapter Six

First challenge of the plan: Fit eight people into a shitty five-seater car. 

Ross and Holly found themselves curled up on the floor of the backseat, and Vernon was laying across the second row. Dan comfortably stretched out in the front seat. He’d make a bragging joke about it, but he’s was a little, yknow, preoccupied. 

“Can we go over the plan again?” He asked. 

“So we just go in there, grab Brian, and get the fuck out,” Arin told him as he gunned it down the road. 

Dan nodded. It was good enough for him. 

The car slowly lost speed as it reached the end of the neighborhood. “What?” Dan asked. “Why are we stopping? We’ve got to go now!” 

“Dude, you never told us where we’re going.”

“Okay, so it’s like,” Dan said, using his hands to almost display what it looks like to help him describe it. “It’s just past the common, towards where that theatre used to be? Can you get there?” 

“From fucking vague instructions? Sure just let me pull the address out of my ass!” Arin shouted. 

“Well, I’m SO sorry I’m struggling to find the name of the place where Brian’s fucking hiding from certain doom!” Danny shouted back. “Fuck, it’s the Wolf’s Duty! Brian always said it sounded like a wolf was jacking some guy off or something!” 

“I know where that is!” Vernon yelled. 

Suddenly, as if he’d always known, Arin also know where it was. 

“Oh fuck!” Arin yelled. “Fuck yeah, Writers! I’m sorry I snapped at you, I’m very stressed out!” 

“It’s fine I’m also stressed out!” Dan yelled back. 

They sped off towards the destination. 

“Are you sure Brian’s there?” Vernon asked. “That’s kind of a random place to hide.” 

“No, it’s where we film all of the NSP videos,” Danny explained. “The owners always thought it was cute how we met there, hiding from WENDYS. She’s this old Actress, and she’d always let us film there.” 

“She sounds nice,” Holly told him, her voice only a little muffled behind her helmet. 

Dan smiled. “Yeah, she really is. She’d always play the girls in our videos, and she taught me how to not suck. She’s on vacation with her daughter for this month. I hope she’s safe. She and Brian are really the only people I ever talk to.” 

“How’d you and Brian get so close, anyway?” Holly asked. “It’s rare for us to have solid lives like that.” 

She seemed like the kind of person who genuinely cared about what people had to say. It made sense, considering how all the Grumps seem to really listen to her in return. It was nice. They were nice. 

“You’re narrating,” Holly said, laughing. “But I appreciate it.” 

“Shit, I can’t control it. Brian was teaching me,” Dan said. 

“Tell the story!” 

“Okay, okay. You know how it is, being a Creator. I was on the run from WENDYS and I stumbled into that club. Brian was having his birthday there and when they came in he, oh fuck, what did he call it? Uh…. wr- oh, wrote me in! That was it!” Dan tried to continue, but he interrupted himself with his own laughter. “The dudes that came after me were pissed off, but there were tons of people around so they couldn’t do anything. He could’ve just ditched me there, but he just… He didn’t. He never told me why he helped me, but it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. We’ve barely been apart since.”

“Aw, that’s actually so cute,” Ross said in awe. “Better than our meet cutes.” 

“Fucking wrong,” Arin argued. “All of ours are so cute.” 

“You tell yours!” 

“Wait, I can bang this out so fast. They tell it so much that I basically have it memorized,” Vernon told him. “Basically, Arin and Suzy met in high school and bonded over hiding that they were Creators, but they got found out and went out on their own together. Arin spent time on and met Ross and then Ross got found out and needed a place to go, and Arin and Suzy are the best so they worked for a month to cover his plane ticket to move out to them and they’ve been together ever since. Then like, ooh, maybe a year later, Barry was on the run, and happened to be at the same train station as Ross and Suzy? I think they helped him hide from World Elite and he was cute so they kept him. Then our local sapphics met in a coffee shop au, since Holly always would stop in for coffee before work, and Suzy doodled butterflies on her cup when she still worked at Starbucks. WENDYS got on her ass and they naturally brought her in because, again, we’ve really never been able to resist cuties. Then, they met Jack and I when we all had that awkward period where we trusted WENDYS for some reason. So, yeah, we’re pretty adorable, I’d say.” 

“Vernon, you’re killing the magic,” Barry frowned. “We were going to go all montage-y and tell the story right!” 

“Okay, but like, there’s not really any time left anyways,” Vernon pointed out. “We’re here.” 

Danny suddenly sprung to life, sprinting out the door as fast as he could. He heard the Grumps call out after him, begging him to be careful, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He opened the door to the little bar, looking around frantically. 

There, sitting on the edge of the mainstage, in the complete ninja-get up besides the mask, was Brian. 

“Brian? Holy shit, you dumb fuck!” Dan yelled, running to him and hugging him tightly. 

“What the- Dan?” Brian asked incredulously, pushing him away. He studied him carefully, and Danny couldn’t shake how tired he looked. He’d seen him that morning. “How- How the fuck? There’s no way. How do I know it’s really you and not some fake-Dan?” 

“Because, just this morning I called myself Daniel Sexbangiel, because, reminder, I’ve only been gone for like three hours, tops, and you’ve already tried to get yourself killed you dumb fuck! Why was this a good idea?!” 

“I- Oh fuck, Dan!” Brian pulled him back into the hug, squeezing him almost too tightly. He whispered quietly, “I thought you were gone.” 

Ever so quietly, Dan whispered back, “I thought I was too.” 

“I love you,” He whispered into his shoulder.

“Love you too, Bri,” He told him. 

Brian had never been so glad to have the biggest annoyance in his life back.

Danny was glad that that shitty voice in his head was finally back to give him migraines. 

Dick.

Asshole. 

They were clearly in love and fucking oblivious.

Who the fuck said that? 

Jack burst through the door of the club. “Yeah, that was me. Hey, uh, hate to interrupt the reunion, but there’s a huge fight happening outside? Can you maybe help, please?” 

“Oh shit!” 

Brian and Danny exit the bar, seeing exactly what the “huge fight” was referring to. In the few minutes they’d enjoyed their reunion, two truck fulls of WENDYS agents had arrived on the scene, and the Grumps were in a full out battle. 

“Holy shit, did she just throw a truck with beatles?” Brian gasped, gaping at the fight in front of him.

Dan nodded. “Oh, yeah. This will be a fight.” 

“No kidding. 

“Ready?” 

“Fuck yeah.” 

When Brian played the beginning riff of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, Danny couldn’t help but smile. “Dude, good choice.” 

Brian gave him a thumbs up, running forward and knocking an attacker to the ground as he ran past. He continued forward like that, taking down as many as he possibly could while he headed up to back up Arin. 

“Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back,” Dan sang, catching the attention of several agents, who approached him just in time to hear Dan add the perfect amount of emphasis to “Even while you sleep.” 

The group collapses immediately. 

“Stay down!” Danny cheered before he continued singing along. 

Holly, who was currently perched on cloud while she sent her birds down to attack and keep an eye over their group, noticed the song and joined in. “We will find you, acting on your best behavior, turn your back on mother nature, everybody wants to rule the world!” 

Dan stared up at her in surprise. “What? I didn’t know you were a Singer!” 

“I never mentioned it!” Holly said, leaning over the edge of the cloud to shrug at him. 

“It’s my own design, it’s my own remorse!” Arin sang badly from the other side of the street, hitting hit shots in time with the beat of the music. 

Suzy posed dramatically from the top of her bug-wave. “Help me toooo deciiiide. Help me make the most of freedom-” 

“-and of pleasure-” Jack sang as he sat on top of Arin’s car, very busy with the all important role of watching their asses and occasionally whacking the agents that came towards him with a bat. 

Vernon pumped his fist up and sang along while carefully convincing squads of agents to split up to be more easily beaten the shit out of. “Nothing ever lasts forever!” 

The group all looked toward Ross expectantly. With a shit eating grin, Ross waited until his cue was already long past to shoot at his group of agents and singing, horribly off key, “Everybody want to rule the world!” 

The agents almost too easily beaten, Danny could put his full attention into the atrocity he has just heard. “Ross, what the fuck? Do you have no rhythm? What was that?” 

“Well, we won, right?” 

“Yeah, but we had a thing going, man!” Arin complained. “We-” 

The door that Suzy had torn off one of the truck landed in front of Arin, just barely avoiding completely flaying him. 

Brian’s eyes widened. Oh fuck, the Editor! They had to go, now. 

“Didn’t you face off against him, Brian? What happened after I got dragged out?” 

He’d almost been murdered or grabbed. If he hadn’t fled, he probably wouldn’t be standing there right now. 

“Yeah, fuck, let’s go!” 

Suzy pulled Holly down from her cloud and the entire group made a break for the car, falling pieces of trucks and dangerous rubble rained down on them. Suzy gave them as much cover as she could with her army, but Brian’s decision to bail was definitely a smart one, as they still only barely managed to make it to the car in one piece. 

Dan pushed Brian in and was about to follow in after him when he felt a prick in his neck. Reaching around, he found a small dart that he easily pulled out. He felt his body go completely numb for a minute, but luckily, Barry pushed him into the car after him. “I think someone just tried to drug me,” He mumbled, staring at the dart as though it was a fifth limb. 

“Are you feeling okay?” Brian asked. 

Danny nodded, slowly. He was a little out of sorts, but otherwise fine. 

The car lurched forward, sending them hurtling away. Dan stared out the back window, hoping to see the Editor fading away in the distance, but instead, they disappeared and reappeared right behind the car. “Ah! Fuck!” Dan yelled, terrified of the figure chasing them. 

Barry sprung into action, leaning out the window, turning around quickly and throwing a suddenly appearing Burgie at the Editor. It’s not until afterwards that he froze, staring at the disappearing figure in shock. 

Luckily, Arin managed to make a quick turn and they disappeared into the city. 

Dan collapsed in the crowded car, basically completely pressed into Brian’s chest. He couldn’t help but smile at the other man. After all, their dumbasses had managed to not get killed another miracle. You had to celebrate the little things like that. 

Ross groaned. He was pinned between Brian’s legs, Vernon’s back, and the floor. “We gotta get a van or something.” 

Arin sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.” 

He made that much more of an effort to hurry to the Creator’s Grove, in hopes of getting home and being able to figure out what to do next.


	8. Chapter Seven

“Fuck.” 

The group stared at the once-again flaming wreckage of the Creator’s Grove. It had seemed to be a clear threat against the Grumps; the only apartment building damaged was their own, that little place farthest to the left. WENDYS must’ve seen where they had sped off from and left this as a warning.

“I think we’ve got a lot of it,” Suzy called as she approached the group with her army of bugs clutching piles of photos and art supplies. “I think we were fast enough that most of it didn’t really burn yet. The one perk to living on the top floor.” 

Arin sighed. “It’s not the stuff, it’s just… the principle, I guess.” 

“Dude, I’m really sorry I got you pulled back into this,” Dan told the entire group. “I should’ve… Fuck, I-”

“Nah, it was time,” Arin told him. “We’ve gotten lazy.” 

“Wish they didn’t burn our house down though,” Ross said with a sigh. 

The group all added their agreements. 

Dan turned to say something to Brian, but he realized that the man wasn’t paying attention. “Dude, what are you doing?” 

Brian stared down at his phone. He blinked at itm then rubbed his eyes and looked again. “My company just deposited a shit ton of money into an offshore account and sent me the information.” 

“What?” 

“Holy shit, how much?”

After a long moment, Brian gasped. “A million dollars. Holy fuck, that’s-” 

Dan cheered, grabbing Brian in a hug. “We’re set for life!” 

“That’s so much money that should be going to research.” 

“Oh my god, Bri!” 

The random money that really should be used to fund benefiting educational purposes, not fueling our get-away, guys turned out to be the first sign of good will from Brian’s company. They spoke out in support of it’s CEO (and intern), putting out a statement that not only backed Brian’s video but also condemned the actions of WENDYS. 

Brian cried like a baby when he saw it. 

“I’m so proud,” He said, clutching Dan’s hand like it was a life line. “I never thought- I’m so glad I helped make this.” 

It came out on the second day of their “laying-low”, or whatever you wanted to call it. They’d stashed their costumes in the trunk, bought cheap clothes, and holed up in a shitty motel room half way towards Massachusetts, all eight of them cramming into one room. The rag-tag group was curled around Brian, trying to read what the statement had said off of his tiny iPhone screen. 

“Let me read it!” Ross shouted, grabbing the phone and squinting at it. “The Wecht Innovations acknowledges the recent warrant released for CEO Brian Wecht but cannot support the investigation. Wecht has committed no crimes, nor has he ever posed as a danger to society. While terrorist attacks are a major issue that we sincerely hope cease in the very near future, Brian Wecht is a good man. He cares deeply about education, scientific research, and the future of our world. He is not a terrorist. Brian Wecht never would support such crimes, and, as his persona, Ninja Brian, he actively spoke out and fought against terrorism. The accusations that he is any danger to society is based not in fact but in-’ Holy fuck, Brian, they went all out.” 

“Is based in not fact but in superstition and hate. That is not how our company operates or what it will stand for,” Brian finished, giving the group a watery smile. “I used that line any time we face research-bias. I’m… I’m so proud.” He pulled Dan into a tight hug. 

Dan tried not to complain about the snot stains he’d later have on his shirt. 

Despite the support from the scientific community, Wecht Innovations was frequently protested against and faced a boycott. The ramifications of it weren’t very great, and the company was able to pull through, but it was a definite sign that they couldn’t go back to New York any time soon. They had to come up with a game plan as soon as possible. 

In the latest shitty motel room, they sat in a semi circle and agreed to figure out what they needed to do as fast as possible. 

“So. Where are we going?”

“Far, far away.” 

“Another Creator town gone ghost town?” 

“I’ve always wanted to see Canada.” 

“Isn’t Europe making some strides in Creator equality?”

“Maybe we should just drive wherever the road takes us.”

“The countryside?” 

“They’ll go after us with pitchforks!” 

“A safe-house?” 

 

“Wait, what?” Jack asked, turning to Suzy, who’d suggested the idea. “We don’t have safe-houses.”

“No, we do.” 

“When’d we get-” 

“Oh!” Arin suddenly shouted, gasping with the realization. “You’re right, we do!” 

“No, what the fuck?” Vernon asked incredulously, staring at the rest of the group. “When did we set those up?” 

Brian raised his hands up in defense and shook his head. “Don’t look at me, I just got here.”

“We had way too much funding when we first struck the deal with WENDYS,” Barry explained. “We didn’t make the mistake of trusting them at first, so we made them give us the funds in cash and we set up independent safe houses around the world. No one knows they exist except for us and a handful of Creators in the areas.” 

Jack glared at him. “You failed to mention this until now?” 

“We were busy.” 

“And we didn’t want to leave New York.” 

Vernon rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable. Where are these places?” 

Holly winced and shook her head. “I don’t know if we still remember-” 

“I saved the list, hold on,” Suzy told the group, standing up to fiddle through the bag of remains from Creator’s Grove. “Yup, here it is. We’ve got three in the US, one in Canada, five sprinkled through Europe, one in Brazil, and one more in Japan.” 

Vernon, Jack, Danny and Brian all gasped. “How the fuck?!” Dan shouted. 

“It was a busy year.” 

“Oh, shit.” 

“Dibs on going to Japan first!” 

Unfortunately for them, they came to an agreement that they shouldn’t try to travel until they figure out a way to get into Canada. The Canadian security would be much easier to get through than its American cousin, and that would be their gateway to the entire world. 

For the first time in any of their lives, the entire world seemed wide open. Even though they were technically on the run, it was like freedom had come to greet them with open arms. When they arrived at their first safe-house, a little cottage on a lake in New Hampshire, they couldn’t help but leave their worries at the door. 

And, after a long couple weeks of bonding and relaxing, WENDYS seemed like a distant, barely dangerous threat.

“Shh, he’s sleeping!” Arin hissed, trying to cover his giggles with the back of his hand.

“Hello, this is Danny Sexbang, chronicling-”

Brian snored again, unleashing an unholy creaking noise that would haunt a grown person’s dreams. Dan tried to keep his giggling under control, but he failed miserably. 

He caught his breath and pushed on. “The unbelievable snoring of Ninja Brian.” 

He flipped his iPhone camera, displaying Brian in all his sleeping glory. He snored relentlessly. It was so loud it was able to drown out the tired giggles of Arin and Dan as they struggled to keep themselves together enough to not wake him up. 

“It’s like getting yelled at by someone’s nose!” 

Danny laughed again, holding onto Arin’s shoulder for support. “Brian, shut the fuck up!” He whispered. “Shut up, Brian.” 

Brian snored louder. 

Now awake and several hours later, Brian paused the video Dan and Arin were showing him. The pair were on the floor in tears. “Why did you make a twitter account to post this?” 

Arin wiped his eyes and tried to stop smiling. “It’s so- Dude, it’s so funny.” 

“I’m sorry, Bri, I had to show them!” Dan cried from his spot on the floor. “I can’t suffer with this alone!” 

Brian rolled his eyes, staring at the screen. He read the caption to the tweet out loud. “Snoring so loud yet WENDYS can’t catch us? You didn’t really post this.” 

“We totally did!” Dan cheered. 

Brian shook his head and considered turning himself in now when he saw just how many retweets the post had gotten. “Great job, guys, we got over thirteen thousand retweets.” 

Arin gasped. “Holy shit, no way! Is that- Is that good or bad?” 

Scrolling through the comments, Brian got a pretty good idea of how the public was reacting to this. “I mean, there’s a lot of hate comments, but most of them are… Well, most of them want more videos like this.” 

It becomes a hobby. First, with stupid videos of little things like Arin dancing badly and of Vernon asking the sky daddy to give him his cummies. Somehow, people really seemed to enjoy them. Their twitter account kept getting followers, and most of the comments were becoming more and more positive. WENDYS was angry, of course, but their attempts to shut down or track the account all failed. Still, they were careful to keep it small scale and filmed in ambiguous locations- at least, at first. Once they got out of the USA, Suzy came up with a terrible idea to piss of the global corporation hunting them just that much more. 

“Alright, squish in everyone!” She called, clutching the end of the selfie stick. In the distant screen, she could see the whole group and the Eiffel Tower in the background. “Perfect! Smile!” 

The photo went up around four pm that evening, with a caption that read “Out and about looking cute but WENDYS still can’t catch us!” and complimented by a dozen smiley faces on the Grumps’ brand new instagram. The storm on Paris began at 4:15pm. A similar selfie, one located at the tower’s Texan cousin, was posted at 4:30pm. 

“See!” Suzy told them, showing the trending page on twitter. #ButWENDYSCantCatchUs was ranked number 9 worldwide. “I told you they’d like it!” 

“Duude, we have to do more of these!” Ross said, seeming to already be scheming. 

Brian grinned. “Aren’t there more Eiffel Tower replicas?” 

“We’ve got to think bigger, here,” Ross told him. “I’m thinking Tower of Piza, Wall of China-” 

Each selfie seemed to get more and more likes. By far, though, the most popular one was of Suzy and Holly, decked out in sunglasses, clutching Starbucks, and brandishing a middle finger, in front of the WENDYS Headquarters. It was absolutely worth the hours of planning and careful timing to avoid getting caught, especially when the head of the entire thing, an angry man named Todd Penegor, went on a twitter rant and tried to pin the act as terrorism. 

By that point, caution was pretty much out the window. 

“Hey rrybody, this’s Ross, and Barry, Jack, and Vernon,” Ross drawled, clutching a Guinness and smiling into the camera. “We’re the Grumps!” 

“Half the Grumps!” Barry replied, holding up his own drink. 

“We’re drunk, because it’s St. Patrick's day, and,” Ross paused, taking a sip of his drink, and then trying again with a terrible Irish accent. “And thi’ ye laddies is how we celebrate in Jack’s homeland!” 

“Not even close,” Jack told him. He turned back to the camera they’d set up in front of the couch. “We’re gonna play some bad games and get drunk and be festive, because, laddies, it’s St. Patty’s day!” 

“Your accent was worse than mine.” 

Barry laughed. This was gonna be a bitch to edit. “Call us the Drunk Grumpy Gamers!” 

“That sucks,” Vernon declared. “How about… Uh… Drunk Grumps? Game- Game Grumps?” 

The group shrugged in agreement. 

“We’re the Game Grumps! Let’s play shit games and get plastered!” 

And plastered they did get. About three-quarters of the way through, it devolved from playing the Lucky Charms website to Irish drinking games and finally to Ross passed out across the remaining three. It was messy, but Barry managed to pull it together into something watchable, made a YouTube channel called “Game Grumps”. He posted a quick link to it on their twitter and left it at that. He really wasn’t expecting anything, but he’s was starting to learn that that was a mistake. 

The video had about a hundred thousand views when he checked it next. The channel itself was creeping towards twenty-thousand subscribers. 

He ran into the little living room in their Japan hide-out. Suzy, Holly, Ross and Dan were hanging on the couch, Holly’s head in Suzy’s lap as she braided her hair and kissed her while Dan was asleep and leaning on Suzy. Ross was sitting on the ground in front of them, and Holly played with his hair. 

“We’re YouTubers!” 

Ross looked up at him. “Dude, Brian and Danny already were.” 

“Yeah, but so are we!” Barry sat next to Ross on the floor and showed him the channel on his laptop. 

“Oh shit,” Ross gasped. “I can’t believe Drunk Grumps got so many views.” 

“I can’t either!” 

“Are you guys gonna keep doing it?” Holly asked. 

Barry shrugged. “I mean, we should all do it.” 

“I’d do some stuff,” Suzy agreed. Then, she nudged Dan. “How about you, sleepy head?” 

“Yeah, sure, I’ll do it,” He answered tiredly. “Wait, what did I agree to?” 

The little channel ended up taking up a lot of their time, especially since there wasn’t always a ton to do when they were on the run. It was a fun way to kill time, and it brought them together. 

But, for some reason, Arin and Danny liked to do it the most. 

“Hey everyone, welcome back to Game Grumps where Arin’s trying to tell a long and complicated story while fucking blowing it at the game play.” 

“Hey, I’m- It’s hard, okay!” Arin yelled, playing up his anger while he struggled at a puzzle in Windwaker. “It’s a little difficult to break down exactly why we made the deal with WENDYS and the complicated, interconnected shit when this fucking- AHHH!” 

“Okay, okay, okay, you’re good, tell the story.” 

“Alright, so it’s like-” Arin began, handing Dan back the controller and letting him play while he talked. “You know what it’s like growing up as a Creator, ri- Well, you know, not sure how many of the people out there know. But still, it’s like… WENDYS is the boogeyman. You hear everything about family members disappearing and whole communities up and leaving and you hope that… I don’t know, that you’re not next? It’s scary, but I think back in, like, 2010, things were starting to get a lot better. Like, people were finally starting to speak up against the stigma against us. It was so cool, and WENDYS was getting protested against and losing funding, which is why I think they ended up looking into us in the first place. So, we were doing the whole Grumps thing and trying it out with petty crime stuff and shit like…. Uh.. Like, the fucking... The whole protest thing? We were just there to support Creators, and then the bombs and shit happened and we just acted. We didn’t really think about it that much until long after. It was just what’s right. So we did that and then after a while, they just got in contact with us through emails and we immediately just kinda… freaked out and dropped off the grid.” 

“Oh yeah! Yeah, I don’t blame you for that.” 

“Right? So after a while we went back to what we were doing out in New York and then all of the fair treatment policies got released. By the time they got in contact with us again, their whole brand was meant to be supporting integrating Creators into society and understanding them. It took a long, long time for us to get anywhere friendly with them- actually, it wasn’t until they sent out Vernon, he used to work for them as one of the first signs that they were looking for positive change- though, if you ask him about it, he’ll tell you he really didn’t get a say in it, so… But yeah, after he came out and we talked it over, and we considered the idea that… that they’d really changed. It was convincing! And they gave us all the support we needed and we ended up-” 

“Oh, I remember that! I used to watch the news every day to keep up on what you guys were doing!” 

“Aw, dude, that’s so cute. You were our biggest faaaannn!” 

“Arin! Dude, stop, stop! Finish the story!” 

“Fine, we were just travelling the world and working with Creators to figure out what needed to get done and even a couple missions to break up some of the Creator prisons left over after WENDYS pulled out- well, they didn’t actually, but… Basically, we had a bunch of these staged, we didn’t know they were but they were staged missions to make them look good. We freed a couple people for real, though, like Jack and Kevin, but-” 

“Wait, what? Am I missing something?” 

“What?” 

“Who’s Kevin? Is that that Prophecy person? Are you hiding him somewhere?” 

“Oh… Uh,” Arin deflated a little bit, looking away from the game. “He’s… Yeah, he was the Prophecy. When we found out that WENDYS was a front, that they were still working against Creators because of political pressure or some shit I don’t really know, he was… He’s an Editor. He was really good at what he did, and Barry ta- Barry was really close with him, and so…” 

“Shit, dude. Editors are…” 

“I know, I get the stigma.”

“It’s not just stigma, like, a lot of them can’t even control-” 

“Dude.” 

Danny snapped to attention, turning to look at Arin. He was deadly serious. “Kevin was a kid. He was…He is smart and talented and he knows how to control his abilities, same as anyone else. We tried to leave WENDYS and they took Kevin. The only reason why we fled and hid and shit in the first place was because they were- they were lording him over us like a pawn. They kept telling us that if we acted out, he- he-” Arin sighed into his hands. “We only found you because we were trying to find him. Holly’s birds spotted an Editor in that fight, and thought it could be him, but there’s no way he’d… He use to just… I don’t know, dude, it’s all so fucked…” 

“I’m so sorry,” Dan said, pulling Arin into a hug. “It’s not your fault, I’m so sorry…” 

After a long, heartbreaking moment, Dan noticed the soft music of Windwaker in the background. They were still recording. They were still recording? “Oh, shit, Arin, the capture…” 

Arin sniffed and sat up. “Next time on Game Grumps I stop crying and we have a good funny haha time! Bye!” He ended the capture, leaning back into the couch and sighing. 

“Why’d you do an outro? There’s no point, we can’t post this,” Dan asked. 

Arin shrugged. “I think we gotta.” 

“What? You have to be kidding. Are you sure you want to get that emotional on the show? What if WENDYS sees it and tries to do something?” 

“I think… I think people need to know what happened and what kind of things we’re scared of. I feel like… I feel like it’ll help? I don’t know, dude. I’ll edit it myself, cause Barry doesn’t deserve that, but… Yeah. Editors are Creators, too. We all get freedom or none of us do. “

“Arin,” Dan said. “You’re one of the bravest people I know.”

Arin just laughed.


	9. Chapter Eight

That week, the Safety Act went to the Senate, and it was supported by the majority of the Senate. Unsurprising. What was more surprising was that it didn’t pass. Forty-two senators had shown up that day and decided that Creators weren’t dangerous enough to take extra measures against, which was just enough to block it from the supermajority it required to pass. So, to celebrate, the Grumps decided to spend some time with the people who’d made it possible- the normal people that appreciated other normal people.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-” 

“Ross, I don’t think you’re helping him,” Brian said, despite the fact that he was actively plotting to fuck with Barry as the stream went on.

Ross gestured frantically at the stream. “Dude! He’s so- Aw, you were close!” 

“Hi everyone, if you’re just tuning in from the front page, we’re the Game Grumps and this is Undertale. We’re here celebrating the fact that the Safety act got shot down by exclusively play games good and try to win all the time,” Vernon told the chat on Twitch. “Also, we’re fugitives on the run. We’re busy people.” 

“I’m gonna try to do another warm up run and…” He trailed off, focusing on the game. 

“Alright, so I have no context for this at all. He’s going terrible, right?” Brian asked, adding an edge of sarcasm into the question. 

“The chat’s all saying that he’s doing great… And that they want me to do the Papyrus voice again.” 

“Let’s check the twitter tag…” Brian mumbled, going through the #GetFuckedWENDYS tag for questions for the stream. “Oh! Ross is lame because he doesn’t have a PhD? You’re absolutely right! Uh… Wait, wait, is the attempt count going to be… Over 9000?” 

Vernon groaned. “Ugh, Dad, stop.” 

Barry suddenly sat up straight, catching his breath as he reached the last free heal before the rest of the fight. “Oh, shit, okay, I’m determined, I’m going to finish this right now.” 

Moments later, the entire couch was screaming. 

“OH SHIT! OH SHIT! YOU- WE- OH SHIT!” Ross shouted, jumping up and down in his seat. 

Brian grinned. “I have no idea what’s going on!” 

Barry made it almost all the way to the end, but just barely died on the last round of Gaster Blasters. “Noooo!” Barry cried, slumping into the couch and breathing heavily. “I need a paper bag, I think I’m going to pass out.” 

“Oop, and the entire chat is spamming Daddy now,” Vernon announced, watching the Twitch chat get flooded. 

For the first attempt they’ve ever done at livestreaming, it was surprisingly going really well. The chat was being respectful, and Barry was playing extremely well. The only thing that was frustrating anyone was- 

“No! Dammit!” Barry cried as he died again. 

-the Sans fight. 

“Is it not going well?” Danny called as he entered the room. 

“Danny Sexbang, everyone!” Brian called as the man in question plopped down on the couch next to them. 

“Hi everybody!” Dan said, waving at the screen. “Is this that new Zelda thing?” 

“No, no,” Barry corrected, not even looking away from the screen. “This is Smash Brothers.” 

“Okay, sick.” 

It took spilling water on Vernon and a couple more attempts before they made much progress. 

“Battletoads, battletoads, battletoads…” Ross chanted as he got closer and closer. 

“Why are you chanting that?”

“I don’t know, it’s like battletoads!” Ross chanted. 

Barry bit his lip. “Fuck, okay, I just got to do this and then- Ah! Special attack!” 

“Um…” Dan trailed off. “Should the special attack be the guy sleeping?” 

“Did you win?” 

“What? What? What?”

“Um… Try going left?” Ross told Barry. 

Finally, after ten minutes of the chat screaming at Ross that he was telling Barry to do the wrong thing because he’s dumb, he figured out what he needed to do and- 

“YES!!!” The entire couch cheered. 

“FUCK YOU SANS!” Ross yelled, flipping off the screen. 

Just then, Holly entered with a huge plate of spaghetti and a pie. “Oh. Here’s a butterscotch cinnamon pie I made from scratch.” 

“This was supposed to take at least four hours, and we were worried it’d be more,” Vernon pointed out. “But it’s only been, like, an hour. Barry, what the fuck.” 

“You ruined my mid-stream surprise!” Holly sighed, putting down the Undertale themed food and joining the group on the couch. 

“I guess we did it,” Brian said with a shrug. “Okay, stream over, bye everyone!” 

“No, no, we’re staying on don’t leave!” Vernon yelled over Brian’s evil laughs. 

“I guess we’re hanging out now,” Ross declared, digging into the spaghetti. 

“How’re you feeling Barry?” Brian asked, turning to face him. “What’s your hot take?” 

Barry’s entire face was bright red and his hands were shaking. “That was so hard. I’m a terrible person.” 

“No, you’re a wonderful person,” Dan told him, patting his back. “Go enjoy your hard earned pie. Jack, you want some?”

The stream quickly devolved into Jack and Barry eating pie in the forefront of the screen while the others fucked around in the background.

“Oh, we still have, like 20,000 viewers,” Barry said. “We should have them ask questions or something.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Vernon piped up, bringing up the twitter tag on his own laptop. “A lot of people are asking real questions. Are Suzy and Arin still asleep? We should get the whole crew in on this.” 

Suzy leaned in from the other room. “Oh, are we welcomed in?” 

“You’re always welcome, loves,” Vernon declared, making room on the couch. 

“So sweet, Vernon,” Suzy told him as she sat next to him and kissed him on the cheek. 

A bleary Arin plopped in between her and Barry, curling up and sleepily putting his head on Barry’s shoulder. “Hey everybody,” He said with a wave. “I’m tired.”

Enthusiastically, Ross shouted, “Creator fact #1: Yes, we do sleep!” 

The Grumps broke into laughter. 

“Oh my god, that was a question I got! Someone actually asked if we sleep!” Vernon shouted, pointing at the screen in a fit of horror and hilarity.

Danny groaned into his hands. “Nooo, you HAVE to know we’re not like, robots, right?” 

“Okay, okay, we’re getting educational here,” Brian announced, moving to sit in front of the camera. “Hey, everyone. As you know, I have a PhD.” 

“Briaaaan, don’t patronize our audience!” Holly shouted. 

“I also happen to be a very successful scientist as well as a Creator. We’re going to learn today, boys and girls. Send me your questions, and I will happily get rid of any incorrect assumptions you may have.” 

Vernon decided he play along, as long as Brian didn’t royally fuck them over by pissing off their only supporters. “Okay, here’s a question from twitter. ‘Are Creators actually human?’”

Brian grinned- he was being educational, Vernon, not an asshole. “Ah, the age old question. Well, what’s for certain is that we aren’t monsters or anything. The only difference, biologically at least, between Creators and everyone else is one gene. One gene also separates people with brown eyes and blue eyes. So, are blue eyed people not human? Obviously not. No one really understands how exactly Creators can do what they do, but that doesn’t mean they’re not people, or, for that matter, any less worthy of respect. So, yes, we’re human.” 

“Creator fact #2!” Ross shouted. “We’re human!” 

“Oh, okay, this one should be interesting, but it’s not educational,” Vernon said. “Which of us are dating? There’s also a ton of comments on this one about nobody being able to figure out who is with who.” 

“Alright, it’s really easy,” Holly told the camera. “We’re all dating each other except for Danny and Brian, who we love dearly but we’ve been a little busy with the whole ‘on the run’ thing to figure out the details.” 

Dan shrugged. “Maybe I’m just keeping you all on the run, yknow, for kicks.” 

“Pretty sure that’s what WENDYS’s doing,” Brian pointed out. 

“Dude, that’s terrible,” Danny cried, laughing anyway. 

The stream finished as well as it possibly could’ve, with only a few annoyance-fueled reminders from the World Elite themselves that the Grumps were a legitimate threat and fugitive group posted on many of the local news stations. After they wrapped, Dan collapsed on top of Brian. “Dude, can I nap on you right now? Is that cool?” 

“That would be super not cool, actually, because then I’ll fall asleep and wake up to another video of me snoring on twitter.” 

“Hm,” Dan pretend to care, not even considering moving. “A shame.” 

Brian cleared his throat, looking around at the rest of the group. “Oh, uh, about the dating thing, though…”

“Was that weird?” Holly asked nervously. “I’m sorry, I know we haven’t talked about anything yet, but-” 

“No, I’m totally cool with it. I just… Can we take it slow? See where it goes on it’s own?” 

Holly smiled. “I’m totally cool with that. Everyone?”

The choruses of yes made Brian smile as well. “Opinions, Mr. Avidan?” 

Dan grinned up at Brian. “I think you hit on exactly what I was thinking, Bri.” 

The post-stream jitters melted into that beautiful, blissful calm-filled love feeling that Dan had been a little… something of, that first day he met them all. He finally was starting to make sense of it all- the light feeling in his chest that came up when he thought of them all. 

That lovely feeling he felt when Suzy sat on the back of the couch, attempting to find a way to french braid his entire head of curly hair and complaining about how messy it was. 

That lovely feeling when Vernon fussed over the stream’s analytics and the popularity of the twitter tag over time, mumbling nonsense when he was exhausted from thinking about it for too long and how he laughed too hard after calling Brian “Daddy”. 

That lovely feeling when Holly brought out her ukulele and indulging in the musician side she often didn’t utilize, her voice and his lilting and breaking off into giggles when improvised songs turn out terrible. 

That lovely feeling when Arin focused so much on taking care of everyone that he didn’t notice that he was wearing cat pyjamas the entire stream and afterwards, when he cuddled into Dan’s chest. Or, alternatively, the way he so easily took to being called “Big Cat.” 

That lovely feeling when Jack came up with a big, cinematic plan for a bit that he always pitched as a little idea. He seemed to come up with the ideas twice as fast when it was late and these sleepy ideas were almost always musicals. 

That lovely feeling when Barry giggled, or smiled, or just said something sweet and followed it with a little grin. The man was raw power when he fought, but he was somehow utterly and undeniably adorable. 

That lovely feeling when Brian made a snarky comment about how Dan was stupid while he held his hand. 

That lovely feeling when Danny cared so much about everyone and always managed to have zero control over his narrations. 

Dan rolled his eyes at Brian. “You’re dumb.” 

At the very least, the dumbass was able to control his narrations. 

The whole mess of them ended up falling asleep across the couch, a big tangle of warmth and love. 

Until later, when Brian felt something shift. He supposed it was a miracle that they’d slept at all with his “terrible snoring”. He was about to make a comment about it, until he spotted who was awake. Barry was sat at the kitchen table, hunched over the edge. His whole body seemed to be trembling. 

Something was very wrong. 

“Barry?” Brian called, unsure if he was even really awake.

Barry jumped, his eyes flying around the room before finally settling on Brian. 

Brian came closer, turning on the light so he could see him. “Hey, it’s just me. Are you okay? It’s super late.” 

Barry shook his head and closed his eyes. “Jus’ can’t sleep.” 

Seemed like a lot more than just a sleepless night. 

“Wanna talk about it?” Brian asked him, trying to sound as gentle as possible. 

Barry shrugged. “Do you ever just… Feel like you failed someone?” 

“Yeah,” Brian said. “Do you?” 

Barry nodded, his eyes glazing over again. 

“Hey, stay with me,” Brian told him. “Is it okay if I touch you?” 

Barry nodded again, so Brian took his hand and squeezed it gently. “Who are you talking about?” 

Brian blinked, and suddenly he was somewhere completely different. He tried to look around, but he realized he didn’t have control of what he was doing. 

“Hey, I’m Barry!” He said, startled because he hadn’t thought to say it. 

This is my memory. Just… Just watch. I’ll explain later, I promise. 

Brian decided to go with it, although he doubted he had much of a choice. 

He saw a man in front of him. His dark hair was swept in front of his eyes, and he shrank away from him. He was practically the picture of a shy teenager. 

“Hey, I promise I’m not here to hurt you or judge you or anything,” Barry had said. “What’s your name?” 

“I’m Kevin,” the man said quietly. 

His vision changed again. This time, they were sitting on the floor of a pristine looking practice range. 

“Why is it always that burger?” Kevin asked at the tail end of a giggle. 

“It’s funny!” Barry told him, though hardly sounding serious. “Arin used to ask me to have one pop up on the screen during his Newgrounds videos, and it stuck. His name is Burgie.” 

Out of nowhere, a small, adorable hamburger appeared to Kevin’s left. “Oh, hello Burgie!” 

The two men broke into laughter. 

The scene changed again, but this time it was much darker. Arin fighting with a WENDYS agent- Brian noted that he seemed perhaps more important than the others- before suddenly, shit seemed to hit the fan. The agents began moving towards them with weapons. As they closed in on them, Barry quickly summoned Burgie, forcing him to burst through the ceiling above them. 

“Make a break for it!” He shouted. 

Suzy’s bug gang swooped down to grab them, making a staircase out. Barry had Burgie wait outside as their getaway vehicle and started shoving the other Grumps up the staircase. Everyone made their way up the stairs, but Barry turned to grab Kevin. 

Instead of being able to grab his hand so they could run out of there, he was forced to watch as an agent pushed a needle into his neck. 

Brian blinked, seeing his sight return to his own body. He heard someone scream, and it took a long moment that it had come from him. When he turned to Barry, he saw that he was crying. 

“I’m sorry,” Barry said. “I know I lied about what I am, but-” 

Brian pulled him into a hug. “It’s okay. You didn’t fail him. It wasn’t your fault.” 

When the other Grumps slowly awoke, struggling to see in the dark what was going on, all Brian did was shush them and pat Barry’s back. 

Life goes on. 

It began to seem like, for the whole world, things were getting better. Protests against the World’s Elite were becoming more and more popular, but instead of being in danger of retaliation, the protestors were protected and remained peaceful. None of them wanted to say that they were single-handedly responsible for it or anything, but just speaking out and being visible had had an effect on other Creators. People everywhere were being bolder and daring to be themselves, and honestly? It was worth celebrating. 

“Oh shit, Suze, this looks mad cute,” Danny told her as he entered the pool deck of the apartment building they had bought out as a safe house in Brazil. The warm weather only complimented the summer atmosphere that Suzy had set up. Fairy lights were strewn all over the area, and floaties with little festive drinks in the cupholders. 

“I feel like I’m living in Pinterest!” Holly cried, taking in the atmosphere. Suddenly, she gasped, and cried, “Oh my god, you made floaties for my pigeons!! That’s so cute!!” 

Suzy smiled, entwining her arms around Holly’s neck and kissing her gently. “I knew you’d like it!” 

Vernon pouted. “If I compliment you, do I get a kiss too?” 

“You can just get a kiss just because I like you,” Suzy said, releasing Holly to kiss Vernon just as sweetly. 

“Suuuuuzy, stop stealing everyone’s kisses, share with the grouuup,” Barry groaned, pretending to be upset. 

She just rolled her eyes and kissed him too. “There’s plenty to go around. But for real, who’s going in the pool?”

“Brian is!” Ross shouted, sprinting across the pool deck, grabbing Brian, and pulling them both towards the water.

The poor man shouted, “NO!” before being plunged into the water. He surfaced a moment later and glared at Ross. “Not cool.” 

Ross just stuck his tongue out at him. 

Eventually, they all ended up in the pool anyway. Holly carefully guided some of her recently resculpted birds into the tiny floaties that Suzy had made and then joined them in a floaty of her own. Jack and Vernon carefully crammed into another, Vernon laying across Jack with a grin. The rest all swam, except for Danny, who sat on the side. He didn’t want to mess up the bun his hair had been gathered into. 

“Did I ever tell you guys that I was scared of the water for a long time?” Barry asked from his position on his back, staring up at the sunset. 

Holly shook her head. “You never said that!” 

“Tell the story,” Ross called from the other side of the pool. 

“So I went to the beach with my brother for the first time in like middle school, and we were looking out at the water, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful and huge it all seemed, so I tried to tell him and I accidentally narrated it. I didn’t know I could even do it at the time, so when my brother freaked and told me a Creator was nearby and that he’d heard them in his head, I freaked out too. I didn’t realize a until a year later that he’d heard me.” 

“Oh my god, thank god,” Ross exclaimed. “I thought I was the only one who found out on accident. I doodled a dick on my friend’s notebook in high school and it started wiggling on the page.” 

Barry snorted, breaking into a bout of laughter. “That’s so bad!” 

“Dude, trust me. I made him swear not to tell anyone too, but he was laughing so hard that other people came to look. I was on the run, like, a week later.” 

“You think that’s bad?” Brian questioned. “I was dicking around in music class and I played the Jaws theme, and half the class went home that day because of panic attacks.” 

“I fucking was thinking about how a great it would be if this annoying guy in my neighborhood went in front of everyone and made a fool of himself in front of all the kids and so he did and World Elite came for me within the shitting hour,” Jack said, groaning at the end. 

“Aw, Jack,” Vernon exclaimed, wrapping his arms around his neck. “That’s so rough. I was interning and I accidentally presented something as a narration and WENDYS got me the next day. I swear, accidental narrations have killed many young Writers.” 

“That’s true,” Brian agreed. “It’s harder than it seems.” 

“I first found out when I was playing in the pool in my backyard, and I convinced myself I could walk on water,” Dan admitted. “So I- Actually, I can just show you.” 

Dan stood, focusing on his role and focused on the firm belief that the pool in front of him was just solid ground. Then, without hesitation, he took a step forward. The Grumps’ eyes all collectively lit up as gasps filled the pool deck.

“That’s the sickest party trick ever!” Arin cried. “Forget my Megaman story, that’s so cool!” 

Brian rolled his eyes and booed. “Show off!” 

Dan flipped off Brian, giving the rest of the Grumps a little bow. 

Arin hopped out of the pool, standing on the side closest to Dan. “You gotta teach me how to do that!” 

“Come on over here, Big Cat, and I will!” 

Danny reached out and took Arin’s hands, guiding him slowly forward towards the edge of the pool deck. “Alright, convince yourself that the water is solid ground, and then just take a step forward.” 

“Okay… And…!” Arin took a step forward. For one, brief second, he and Dan stood on top of the water. 

“There, you-” 

Before Dan could even finish his sentence, Arin yelled and plummeted into the water. Dan doubled over in laughter, giggling his head off at how stupid Arin had- Aaand Dan lost his footing and went tumbling into the water next to him. 

“Aw, dude!” Danny laughed as he surfaced. “My hair’s ruined! I was beautiful!” 

“You still are,” Arin replied, pushing some of the wet ‘fro out of Danny’s eyes. 

Dan shook his head, linking his arms behind Arin’s head. “Well well well, isn’t this fanfiction worthy?” 

Arin shrugged, grinning as he leaned in and said, “Excuse me for wanting our first kiss to be romantic.” 

“Romantic my ass,” Dan whispered and closed the gap just that little bit more. 

Finally, finally, Arin kissed him. 

Dan giggled and fucked it up when he heard the jealous gasps around him. 

Arin laughed, picking up Danny and throwing him into the deep end of the pool and shouting, “I AM THE FIRST KISSER OF THE NINJA SEX PARTY BOYS!” 

“Woah, dude! Rude! I thought we had a moment!” Danny yelled, laughing hysterically as he did. “Am I just a prize to be won to you all?” 

“No!” Holly cried, floating over to him and hitting him on the arm. “Well, a little bit. In a nice way!” 

“Should I be jealous or upset you’re not all fighting over me?” Brian questioned. 

“Yeah, Barry, Ross, and Arin have a month long game tournament over who gets to kiss you first,” Holly admitted. 

“Holly! What happened to our trust pact?!” Ross shouted, blushing a little bit. 

Oh fuck, she’s embarrassed the masochist.

Holly laughed at him. “Sorry, Ross, but a team doesn’t hide secrets!” 

“So much for letting things happen!” Brian said, looking at Dan shocked and surprised. 

Dan shrugged and grinned. 

I think this is… This is really good, right? 

Yeah. It’s different, but… It’s good. 

I think I love them. 

Shit. I think I do too.


	10. Chapter Nine

“Buckle up, Grumps, we’re moving to LA!” 

“Arin, what are you talking about?” Brian asked. They were currently camped out at the Canadian safehouse, and weren’t set to move again for a while. “We just got comfy again.” 

“He’s right we’re going!” Suzy cheered, jumping in front of Arin and grabbing his hands, pulling him into a spinning dance around the room. 

“What’s all the commotion?” Holly called from the other room. 

Suzy called back, “We’re going to Los Angeles!”

Holly, Ross, and Barry poked their heads out from the next room over. “Um,” Barry began. “We don’t have a safe house in LA.” 

“The whole city is a safe house!” Arin cheered. “They outlawed mistreatment and arresting of Creators for just fucking exisiting! They fucking banned WENDYS from LA!” 

“Holy shit!” Ross gasped, dancing around the living room with Arin and Suzy. “We’ve got a sanctuary city!” 

“I’M ALREADY PACKING!” Vernon yelled from he and Vernon’s shared room. 

“HIPSTER!” Jack shouted from about three feet away from him. 

“I’M GONNA BUY A BIKE AND I WON’T HAVE TO LEAVE IT IN EUROPE!” 

“Oh, shit,” Danny laughed. “We’re goin’ a Cali, dudes.” 

“We already say dude all the time, Dan,” Barry pointed out. 

“But now we have a reason!” 

That night, they booked the flight to California for the next month and spent the entire night staying up late to look at apartment listings. It was exciting! Their little group, a year deep into running away from a giant murder corporation, finally had a place that they could settle down and make their own. They argued about every detail, like whether they wanted or needed a spice cabinet, or where they’d put the couch, or how many rooms would they really need if they all end up curling up together no matter what. 

Brian, who so often was the only person who actually knew how to live as a normal adult, had to intervene a lot. 

“Yeah, spice cabinets are kind of important, and Holly likes to cook.” 

“I don’t think we can rule this place out solely off of whether or not it has a bike rack.” 

“We’re- Yeah, guys, four half baths does not equal two bathrooms!” 

He couldn’t quite bring himself to blame them. The year they’d spent on the run was the only year Brian had ever spent hiding like that. He was one of the very, very few Creators out there who’d gotten to grow up like any other kid. He might as well use that to help his mess of a… something to figure out how to settle down. 

“Okay, this is pretty good, but we’re going to need shower curtains, tupperware, towels, and basic cutlery as well if we want to actually have a functioning house,” He told them, scribbling the added items to the bottom of the list Suzy had put together.

“Fuck, I thought I nailed that,” She admitted. 

Vernon weakly raised his head up from his place on the couch. “Yes, daddy, give us a functioning household.” 

“Why do you get kinky when you’re tired?” Brian asked him. 

“I just get louder when I’m tired.” 

“Ew, spicy boy, go to bed,” Ross told him, tossing a blanket on top of him. 

“Face it, Bri, you’re our dad,” Dan announced, collapsing across his lap dramatically. 

“You’re not wrong, but I really don’t want to think too hard about it when we’re all kind of dating.” 

Arin shrugged. “It’s easier if you don’t.” 

They talked over a couple more details, putting in orders for everything to be sent to the apartment once they officially moved in. The best (or, sometimes, worse) part of the Canadian safehouse was the fact that there was a big enough room for everyone to sleep in that wasn’t the couch, meaning that slowly, and after Vernon was carried out by Suzy and Jack, Dan and Brian were alone. 

“Just the two of us,” Dan pointed out, leaning against Brian and putting his head on his shoulder. 

Brian snorted. “That hasn’t been true in a year.” 

“So… Where have we gone in this year?” 

Brian shrugged. “All of the world.” 

“Bri, you know how I said I think I’m in love with them?” 

“Yeah, what about it?” 

“I think…” 

Dan was absolutely, one-hundred percent sure that he was in love with a Mr. Brian Wecht. 

And, he still didn’t know how to stop from narrating, Brian noticed. 

“Mmm, no,” Dan corrected. “That was on purpose.” 

Brian smiled. He really hoped that Dan wanted to kiss him right now. 

And, luckily, he did. A whole lot. 

And, if that night, Dan made a call to the wonderful lady who runs the Wolf’s Duty to thank her? Well, that’s his own business. 

That last month before they moved to LA practically flew. Before they knew it, they were packing up their last safe house. They were going to their new home. 

“Arin,” Ross asked, pointing the camera to face the tired man. “Are you excited to go to California?” 

“I’m so tired, but I’m so happy, but I’m… So tired.” 

Ross pointed the camera at himself and flipped his sunglasses down. “Come and get us, WENDYS. Oh, haha, wait, you can’t!” 

“We should do a live show,” Jack said to the camera. “Free tickets to anyone who can’t imprison or kill us because we’re in the great state of California!” 

“Guys, guys,” Brian told the group. “Let’s be real. They couldn’t catch or murder us even when we were literally everywhere else.” 

“Jesus, we’re going to get shot down by their snipers,” Holly groaned. 

“Which is illegal in California!” Ross cheered. 

“Imagine that, everybody. A brave new world where murder is, shockingly, illegal,” Dan sleepily told the camera. 

Ross snickered, turning off the camera before entering their gate and boarding the flight. 

Flying also presented a similar issue that Arin’s car had presented many months ago- eight people can not evenly sit together on a plane. 

“Sir, you can’t sit on the floor of the plane,” A hostess told Ross, who had tried to jam himself on the ground between Holly and Brian’s legs. 

“I’m tired and I don’t like strangers,” Ross groaned. 

The hostess looked absolutely at a loss for words. 

“I’m so sorry, he’ll move,” Holly and Brian tried to tell the hostess at the same time. 

The hostess hesitantly nodded and walked away. Despite the interaction, Ross still ended up staying out of his seat the entire flight. 

Miraculously, they arrived in LA about four hours later in one piece, with a car waiting for them and no military. The only sign of WENDYS in the whole state was an annoyed statement against the ban that they were forced to recognize. It was fucking wonderful. The ride was something out of a movie- although, it had to be out of La La Land, as the traffic was pretty much as bad as it was in that- and the sunshine after a month in Canada felt cathartic. Danny couldn’t even resist grabbing Suzy’s hand and squeezing through the open sunroof, laughing as their hair blew all over the place and they almost made Arin crash the car in surprise to seeing his boyfriend and girlfriend’s legs next to his face out of nowhere. 

It seemed cliched, and it was a little messier than the movies, but it was real. It was all theirs. 

“Honeys, we’re home!” Holly cheerfully called as they entered the brightly lit apartment. 

“Is my bike here?!” Vernon called as he ran into the room.

Barry laughed. “You’re like a terrible stereotype of yourself. Ooh, look at me, I’m Vernon Shaw and I refused to not be a vegan.” 

“I’m so tired, Barry, let me be excited about my bike.” 

“The spice rack is here,” Holly yelled from the kitchen, making Brian smile. 

“Thank god, where else would we put the cumin?” 

“Hey!” A blonde man called, knocking on the open door. “You must be the people all these packages are for!”

“Did you get a bike?” Vernon asked, seeming a little too desperate. 

“Oh, yeah, it’s by our front-” He began, gesturing towards the left. 

Vernon practically sprinted past him. 

“-door.” 

“Don’t mind him, this means a lot to him,” Suzy told him. “I’m Suzy, and this is Arin, Brian, Holly, Ross, Danny, Barry, Jack, and Vernon just ran past you.” 

“Woah, shit, you definitely practiced that. Hey, everyone, I’m Matt.” 

“Matt,” Someone outside the door whispered loudly. “Are they actually the Grumps?” 

The Grumps shared a panicked look. 

Remember, we’re in California, we can run away from this situation without it being a crime and no one can arrest us for it. 

Cool, Jack, we live here and they’re our neighbors. They could just kill us at any time. 

This is bad! This can only be bad!

“I’m- Dude, I’m so sorry, this is my roommate Ryan,” Matt told them, pulling a brown haired man into the room. “We’re not creepy, I swear, we just really like your gaming channel.” 

Um… This is new. 

California is a magical place.

Danny sighed in relief, smiling at the pair. “Oh dude, you should’ve lead with that! Sorry, we’re a little on edge, understandably.” 

Ryan winced. “Yeah, fuck, sorry about that. You guys are a huge inspiration to us.” 

“Aw, means a lot!” Arin told them. 

Brian was already planning to break into their apartment later and see if they were stalkers plotting to figure out a way to kidnap them and export them to WENDYS. 

Brian, no. We’re going to try a new thing called trust. 

Trust is for idiots who are content with dying. 

Danny smiled wider. “If it’d be cool with you guys, we’d love to have you over for dinner sometime. We’ve never really had neighbors before, and you guys seem super, mega cool.” 

“Oh yeah!” Ryan replied. “That would be really cool.” 

Dan was very uncool.

“It’d be fun!” 

Vernon excitedly paraded his new bike into the room. “Thank you for keeping this safe for me! Cool Splatoon poster, by the way!”

Vernon Shaw, local genius and national hero, had already went through their entire apartment and their web history, and the only thing weird about it was the fact that Matt had googled synonyms for “pre” and favorited the results. 

“No problem!” Matt answered. “So great to meet you guys!” 

“You too!” Suzy said, closing the door as they left. 

Ross pivoted to face the relentless voices in his head. “So, Writers, since you all won’t shut up, have you guys all come to the conclusion we can make friends, or…?” 

Brian, Jack, and Vernon shared a look. 

Brian shrugged. “Yeah, go for it.” 

Fortunately, they had absolutely underestimated just how good of friends they would end up. The explanation of the “pre” google search rocked their world.


	11. Chapter Ten

Brian couldn’t believe his eyes. The sight in front of him as so offensive and cruel that he knew he’d be kept up all night by it. 

They had a groupchat. 

The “I’m gonna pre, dude” statements had become a staple in their conversations in the past week, but what was infinitely more terrifying was the fact that seven artists (and FIVE capital-A Artists, even!) now had easy access to an in-app function to fuck with people. The increasingly stylized and biologically accurate dicks, with an included feature to see the play by play of how it was drawn, were truly unfortunately. 

Brian’s phone buzzed again. “Money says, if I open this right now, it’ll be a picture of a dick.” 

Suzy rolled her eyes. “If we get kicked out for yelling about dicks, I’ll be pissed.

She, Brian, Danny, and Barry had taken the day to head downtown for a lunch date. It was a fun new luxury to enjoy in their second week free, but Barry was being suspiciously quiet. 

Upon opening the text, his suspicions were confirmed. “Et tu, Barris? 

“It’s fun!” 

Danny added, “As Danny Sexbang, I have to appreciate the craft.” 

“Maybe I just appreciate being able to be out in the sun with three of my favorite people.” 

“Aw, I appreciate you too, Brian,” Suzy said, smiling up from her phone. “And I hope you appreciate this.” 

The elaborate dick drawing sent by Suzy to the “funnymens incorporated” groupchat felt like betrayal. Luckily, the salad he’d gotten turned out to be very good as well as super vegan, so he couldn’t complain much. 

“Four lovers, out on the town, looking cute,” Dan said, raising his drink. “Honestly, what a day.” 

“What a place!” Barry agreed, clinking glasses with him. “I honestly never thought there’d be a Creator-friendly place, like, ever.”

“I mean, it makes sense, here,” Brian rationalized. “Creators literally run Hollywood.” 

“Yeah, but so does money and bigotry.” 

“Well, at least…” Suzy trailed off, staring out at the street. A panic seemed to have started, people sprinting towards them like theirs lives depended on it. “Uh oh. We may have a fight.” 

She stood up quickly, the butterfly crown she’d chosen to wear that day devolving into actual, living butterflies as she took off down in the opposite direction as the scared crowd. Danny and Barry took off after her, Brian trailing behind to put a hundred dollar bill on the table before following. 

The closer they got to the scene, the harder it was to push through to the center of the chaos. People were genuinely terrified, which didn’t help to keep people from getting hurt. Brian played a calming song, trying to keep people relaxed so they could get through as fast as possible. 

Finally, they reached the front, revealing two pretty normal guys. They were dressed totally normally, but that was all that they could tell about them. It was like they were somehow blurred out, but- Oh, fuck, Editors. 

“Terrorists, stop!” Dan sang at the pair. 

The pair froze. “Did he just call us… What?” One of them asked in a garbled, indistinguishable voice. 

Suzy urged her butterflies forward to swarm them, but they were easily knocked away.

Dan acted out the motions of drawing a sword, brandishing it and running forward to take a slice at them, but they threw him to the side easily. 

“Shit!” One yelled, and suddenly the ground around them quakes and dust flew into the air, blocking them from sight. When the dust settled, they were gone.

“That was weird,” Barry told them. 

“Maybe they’ve heard of us?” Danny suggested. “We could just be terrifying.” 

The group shrugged it off and chalked it up to just an accident done by young Editors unsure of their own powers. The unconfident nature of the Editors seemed to be evidence enough of this, so they didn’t really think too much about it. 

It wasn’t until Holly and Barry came home the next day, freaked out and covered in grime, that they realized this could be an issue. 

“Look at this,” Holly told Danny and Arin, loading up the video feed from her helmet and from Flappers onto the computer screen. On screen, the two ambiguous Editors from before were present, although this time the edits seemed to be more controlled and concise. After attacks, clapping sound effects and canned laughter played, making the whole scenario seem even more surreal. “It was like they were trying to show off their editing style, for whatever reason.” 

“LA doesn’t have any history of attacks like this,” Arin pointed out. “Whatever this is, it’s here because of us.” 

Dan just groaned into his hands. “Shit, dude, this… This is bad.” 

“Barry, didn’t they say something to you?” 

Barry blinked, looking up at Holly. “Sorry, what?” 

“You said they gave you subtitles.” 

“They, uh, they did…” Barry said, rubbing his eyes. “They just kept saying shit like ‘We know who you are.’” 

The Editors attacked twice more over the next few days, and very quickly, the Grumps were getting burned out. No one could really put together what had happened, and it wasn’t making any more sense with each successive attack. They were so, so tired. 

“You guys actually look dead,” Matt told his friends. “What happened?” 

“Your stupid fucking groupchat,” Brian told him. 

Matt rolled his eyes. “You love my dicks, Brian.” 

“You are a dick.” 

Arin shrugged from his position face down on the couch. “It’s just been a long week and shit.” 

“Yeah, especially after the attacks,” Barry said, staring down Matt and Ryan. “It’s just so weird that these attacks keep happening, especially since it’s right after we moved in here.” 

Ryan and Matt looked at each other and then back at Barry. “Dude, are you okay?”

Dan winced at the questions, really just wanting to take a nap. “I’m gonna go sleep or something, try to shake this off,” He announced, walking off towards the bedrooms. 

Barry seemed to be super on edge. It was kinda unusual for him especially, and it was worrying to say the least. He decided he might as well grab Barry’s favorite blanket from the back closet and give it to him, to try and find a way to help him relax a little bit. He went into the closet and fished in the back box of the remains of their Creator’s Grotto stuff, digging for the blanket. 

He was just out of sight when he heard people enter. He was about to say something, reveal that he was back there, but the people who’d entered suddenly began yelling. 

“I know it was you!” Barry yelled

Matt floundered to correct him. “Well- I mean- It could’ve been anyone.” 

“It could’ve been- You literally put subtitles up that said ‘This is Matt and Ryan!’” Barry argued.

Ryan winced, turning to shut the door. “Dude, you’re the only one who knows, right?” 

Dan pushes himself deeper into the closet, suddenly certain that this wasn’t something he was meant to hear. 

Barry nodded. “I want to tell them.” 

“Why didn’t you?” Matt asked suspiciously. Suddenly, like a eureka moment hit him, he said, “Oh, it’s because we know you’re the same as us! Oh duh!” 

“Shh!” Barry hastily said, looking towards the door anxiously. “Only some of them know. I trust them with my life, but…” 

“You’re scared they’ll see you like the rest of the world sees us?” Ryan said. 

Matt grinned. “Woah, dude! That sounded so super-villain-y!” 

“Yeah dude I know!” 

“Look,” Barry interrupted them, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just- I’ll tell them eventually, ok? Just don’t tell them.” 

“Okay, dude, as long as you know we’re on your side here,” Ryan told him. “Trust us. We’re not the villains.” 

“What about downtown, huh?” 

Matt shrugged. “It was self-defense! That guy-” 

“Don’t call him- Okay, whatever. I’m on your side, fine. Can we just go back to the party? We look suspicious,” Barry conceded, opening the door. 

“Fine,” Matt agreed. 

Ryan nodded, and they left. 

Danny gasped, trying to make up to the breath that he had held. What had he just heard?


	12. Chapter Eleven

The only way that they were going to get to the bottom of the Editor issue was to wait it out. Holly had set up her birds around the city as mini security guards, and they’d alert them when they were needed. 

In the meantime, Barry and Dan were having some issue. Brian didn’t know what had caused it or what to do about it, but it was painfully clear that something had gone down. 

“Dan, can you toss me the milk?” 

Dan snipedly replied, “We’re out.” 

“...All right,” Barry said slowly. “I’m gonna… Are we good? Did something happen?” 

Dan shook his head. “We’re fine.” 

Barry nodded slowly, shooting Brian a questioning look. Brian had no idea what to say and even less of an idea as to what was going on. “Alright,” Barry said, heading towards the door. “I’m gonna go get more, then…” 

The second the front door closed, Brian descended on Dan. “Dan, what the fuck?” 

“What?” 

“You love Barry. You literally once referred to Barry as all that is good and pure in the world. Why are you mad at him?” 

Dan put his head in his hands. “I don’t know, dude, I think he’s hiding something.” 

Brian almost laughed. “Barry is the most open and giving person alive.” 

“No, dude, he’s… I heard him talking with Matt and Ryan.” 

“Our friends?” 

“Yes! No. Maybe?” Dan rattled off, not really sure what he was trying to get across. 

“I feel like I’m missing something here,” Brian admitted. “What’s going on?”

“Barry, and Matt and Ryan, they were in the back room talking about fucking… I don’t know! Vague stuff! He was all like, ‘I know it was you because you told me,’ and two random people who are suspiciously just… Friends with us now! That’s weird! Two editors, Bri!” 

“You’re losing me here.” 

Dan sighed frustratedly. “I have no idea what’s going on, but it feels like something is going wrong.” 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Brian said, taking his hand. “But Barry loves you and you love him. Just, trust him, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Dan agreed, nodding slowly. 

“Lt. Birb saw an attack!” Holly yelled, running into the main room. “We’ve got to go!” 

“Barry just went out,” Brian told her as he ran himself, grabbing his suit out of his room. 

“Text the groupchat then!” 

The group ran down the street, following Holly’s directions and forgoing the car and taking off towards an area a few blocks away. 

“It’s weird, this one is really close to where we live,” She explained. “Most have been randomly strewn about, but this one is just… Convenient, I guess?” 

Arin shrugged. “We haven’t really found a pattern yet, so I guess?” 

Vernon gasped, suddenly swerving his bike. Jack grabbed onto Vernon tighter, almost falling off. “You’re gonna kill us!” 

“Sorry!” Holly called up, finding that the thing that had caused Vernon to almost crash was Lt. Birb. “It’s my bird, she’s really freaked out! We better hurry!” 

Finally, they rounded the last turn, stumbling across the local corner store. Most of it was destroyed, pieces of the buildings being strewn in too-clean cuts to be caused by anything of besides an Editor. This time, though, only one blurred-out Editor stood amongst the chaos. 

Dan gave Holly a panicked look. “Where’s the other one?” 

“What?” The disguised figure called. “The other- No! Wait, guys, I’m not attacking anyone!” 

“You literally attacked this entire area, dude!” Ross yelled, pointing towards the destruction. “You’re not renovating!” 

“Ross, it’s me!” 

Ross tensed up. “Who’s me?” 

“It’s-” A loud, monotone noise emitted from the figure. “Ugh, they’re censoring me! Just- Look!” 

The figure stretched his hands over his head, editing in- 

Holy fuck. He edited in Burgie.

“Barry?!” Dan cried, his eyes widening in horror. “No, you’re-” 

The blurred features of the strange figure melted away, revealing Barry. “I didn’t- Oh, great, now it goes away?” 

Suzy paled, her words coming out slow and almost empty. “I don’t understand. Why would you do this?” 

“I didn’t attack anyone, Suze, you gotta believe me. I’m being set up,” Barry explained hastily. “I think Matt and Ryan are too, they’re not trying to-” 

Danny felt something hit the back of his neck. He swatted it away, assuming it was just a bug.

“Wait,” Jack exclaimed. “What does Matt and Ryan have to do with anything?” 

“Yeah! What do Ryan and I have to do with anything?” 

The group turned, spotting Matt and Ryan behind them. They must’ve appeared just after they arrived. No one had noticed they entered. 

“Dude, you know exactly what we had to do with this,” Ryan pointed out, giving him a humorously questioning look. 

Matt shrugged, saying, “I know, but I thought it’d be dramatic!” 

Barry put his head in his hands, sighing loudly. From his reaction, Danny could guess that they’ve had situations like that before, which he’d heard. He could only wonder about the tens (hundreds?) of other situations like this that he hadn’t heard, perhaps with worse intentions. “Guys, just… Matt and Ryan are the other two Editors, but we’re not the ones attacking! There’s another Editor, that same one we fought back in New York.” 

Ross didn’t seem to hear. “You’re an Editor? You- Why didn’t you tell any of us?” 

“Barry, we love you, why wouldn’t you tell us?” Holly asked, seeming more confused than anything else. 

Danny tried to bite down on his anger. He had no reason to be enraged- besides, you know, the fact that someone he loved had blatantly lied to him- but he felt vitriol fill him anyways. “I can’t believe you lied to us.” 

“He didn’t lie to you. He just didn’t tell you,” Brian corrected, pulling off his mask and seeming strangely calm, like he wasn’t surprised. 

Brian wasn’t surprised. 

“Oh my god, you KNEW!” Danny cried, whirling on him. “You knew and you didn’t tell us?” 

“It wasn’t important.” 

“It wasn’t- Are you fucking kidding me?” 

Brian raised his hands in defense. “It’s just a Medium, it’s not important. We’re talking about Barry, Dan.” 

The edges of Dan’s vision darkened, and he turned to glare ahead at Barry. Barry’s eyes widened, and he backed away slowly. Matt and Ryan suddenly appeared in front of him, like they were defending him. Like they were getting ready to defend Barry once he began attacking. 

Arin reached out, grabbing Dan’s shoulder. “Dan? Are you okay?” 

“You knew too, didn’t you?” He hissed. 

Arin glanced to Brian, and that was all Dan needed to see. He pushed Arin off of him, ignoring Holly’s sudden yell about something about his neck disappeared into the background as he lashed forward to tackle Barry. 

He ignored everything else, letting life melt away into a blur of fury and attack. Barry’s lips were frantically moving, trying to get through to him, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t find the brain cells to care about someone that had betrayed him like this. 

Dan! This isn’t you!

Dan shook his head and closed his eyes, but the words still appeared in the darkened image of his eyelids. He ignored the words, just refocusing and attacking harder. He had to.

Danny, stop, please, this isn’t you!

You’re- You’re hurting me, I don’t want to- 

Don’t make me attack you! I don’t want to fight you. This is stupid! This isn’t you!

Wait… What is that? Dan, there’s something on you. What- 

Ah! Dan, stop!

Dan, please!

I love you. 

I’m sorry, I don’t know- I’m so sorry. I love you, Dan. 

Dan opened his eyes. The world was blurry and lurching, making his head ache. Everything was too bright and too much. He forced his vision down until he could make sense of what he was looking at. Slowly, he realized there was blood on his hands.

Then, out of nowhere, he was tackled to the ground. Dan stared up, recognizing Brian’s worried face. “Bri? What’s going on?” 

Brian stared back at him, studying his face. Did Dan not know what he did? What he said? 

Dan felt a knot in his gut. “What did I say?” 

“We’ve got to get you out of here,” Brian declared, picking himself up off of Dan and grabbing him, taking off in a leap. 

Dan gasped, looking down at the ground and seeing the massive crowd down below with his loves stuck in the middle, trying to appease the people around them. Farther away, Matt and Ryan were pulling Barry forward until they disappeared in a flash of sound effects and strange fonts. 

Context really didn’t help to make sense of what happened. 

“I-” Dan stopped, not sure if he’d heard it correctly. “What?” 

“You attacked Barry and beat the shit out of him, and when he ran away, you started screaming about how Editors couldn’t be trusted. You said they deserved to die, dude. You said Barry was… You said Barry was a monster that should be put down.” 

His head swam, and he had to excuse himself to vomit his guts out. Finally, when he stopped feeling like he was about to pass out from thinking about what had happened, he sat back down with the rest of the Grumps. “I- I don’t remember doing that,” He told them. “I promise, I didn’t… I wouldn’t do that on purpose.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Suzy told him, not seeming to be any more relieved by the idea he hadn’t meant what he did. “There’s this theory board for conspiracies about WENDYS, and there was this thing about brainwashing attempts. It was claimed that they tagged any Creator they caught with a chemical that could be activated by a dart that could implant ideas and suggestions into the victim’s brain, but like, it sounded fake as fuck.” 

Dan absentmindedly grabbed the back of his neck. 

Brian placed something on the table in front of the couch. “This was on you when I tackled you.” 

On the table, glinting menacingly in the dimming light of the day, was a slim, purple dart. The horror dawned on Dan’s face. “This…” 

“It’s not your fault,” Arin told him. 

Dan shook his head, putting his hands over his face. “No, it’s so much worse than that. I could do that to any of you and I wouldn’t be able to stop it.” 

The silence of the group was telling. 

Somewhere nearby, Barry was pacing across a rooftop and trying to focus. He was terrified out of his mind, unsure what his future was and terrified of what was to come. His family had to hate him. Well, Danny definitely did, but the others didn’t even stop him. Maybe he deserved it. 

“I mean, you didn’t have to tell them,” Ryan told him, trying to comfort him. 

Matt chimed in too, saying, “Yeah! I mean, we didn’t tell them we were Editors either, but that was just because, well, Dan said some dodgy stuff in the early days about Editors, like in the Windwaker episode, and-” 

Barry glared at him. “Are you actually saying that Dan, the man who actively fights for Creator rights in literally every video, would be anti-Editor?” 

Matt looked away from him. “I mean, what he said today…” 

Barry didn’t answer. He didn’t want to admit he had a point. 

“What about that other Editor? Do we still have no idea how we’re gonna track them? He’s literally the only lead we have to prove our innocence,” Ryan pointed out. 

“I mean, for a second I thought Barry was them today, ‘cause of the burger thing.” 

Barry gave Matt a look. “What’s wrong with Burgie?” 

“The Editor tags their edits with this little cartoon burger, so I thought maybe the bigger burger was a sign it was them.” 

“What- What do you mean ‘tag their edits’?” Barry asked, a terrifying idea blooming in his head. 

Matt and Ryan shared a look. “It’s like, a little smiling burger. They put in the corner of their subtitles.” 

Barry put his head in his hands, groaning loudly. “I can’t believe this.” 

“What?” 

“I know who the Editor is.” 

If only he’d known just where he was watching from, just behind the entrance to the roof.


	13. Chapter Twelve

Dan kind of wished that he didn’t wake up that morning.

He’d barely slept at all, tossing and turning all night. He only even tried because Suzy had practically begged him to try and sleep off the effects of the dart. Halfway through the night, he had to bring his phone into a different room because the Twitter notifications kept waking him up. 

Adamantly avoiding his notifications when he checked his phone now, he scrolled through the Twitter moments to see what was happening. 

INFLUENTIAL CREATOR LASHES OUT ON EDITOR

With a sigh, he closed Twitter. Abandoning his phone, he walked into the main room, stopping when he heard serious-sounding voices. 

“Dan isn’t… I know how this looks, but we stand behind all Creators,” Arin said. “Something strange is happening here, but Dan isn’t…” 

“It’s fine, we can try it again later,” Jack told him, putting down the camera. 

Yeah, Dan didn’t want to face that yet. 

He retreated back into the bedroom, staring at his phone again. The text messages were better than facing Twitter, but not really by much. A lot of notifications were from the groupchat. Matt and Ryan were telling them that Barry was ok, that they were just hiding out until they could prove their innocence. A handful of missed calls from the Actress from the Wolf’s Duty. A text from Barry. Strangely, it was a video message. 

Dan swallowed his pride and pressed play. 

It started with a wide shot of a rooftop somewhere, with Barry, Matt, and Ryan in the distance. They were talking about something. A few rapid cuts happened, with the shot moving closer and closer to the trio. Finally, the camera was way too close to Barry’s face. 

“It has to be him, I taught him everything-” Barry began, before turning to see what was by his face. He flinched away, staring past the camera with shock and almost relief. “Kevin, wha-” 

The person holding the camera hit Barry, and he collapsed to the ground. It was at that point that Danny screamed and ran to show the other Grumps. 

When they all pressed play together, the camera showed Matt, Ryan, and Barry, all unconscious and on the ground. Then, the person holding the camera turned it around so that they could talk to the camera. 

“Kevin,” Arin gasped, his hand flying up to cover his mouth. “He’s been the Editor behind this the entire time?” 

“76 Wharton Way. If you want answers or to just get all of your Editors back, meet us there,” Kevin told the camera. It sounded rough from lack of use and carried no inflection besides its monotone drawl. “If you do not come, then the four of them die. Arrive at 8pm sharp.” 

The video ended. 

Ross was already at his sketchbook. “Do you think I can draw nukes? How feasible are nukes for this fight?” 

Dan glanced at the clock. They had nine hours. He felt like he was going to be sick. 

“I’m going to go buy more sculpy!” Holly announced, running towards the door. 

Everyone seemed to immediately explode into action, grabbing every piece of art supply they could find around the apartment and making something to help them in the fight ahead. Only Danny and Brian remained still. 

“I can’t-” 

“Yes you can.” 

Danny groaned. “They can literally control my brain, Brian! If we go and it becomes a fight, they can use me as a weapon against you all. That’s not something I want to risk.” 

“So you want to sit behind and risk them coming for you here?” Brian asked him. 

“Holly was working on something!” Ross called from the other room. “A neck-brace that blocks the darts, I think?” 

“I drew her the schematics!” Suzy called across the hall. She poked her head into the doorway. “Dan, we’ve got your back. This doesn’t change anything.” 

Dan sniffed, trying not to cry. The lack of sleep was not helping. “Okay, but as long as it doesn’t get in the way of saving Barry and Matt and Ryan and everyone.” 

Arin ran by, briefly stopping to kiss the top of Dan’s head as they went. “We’re saving everyone, Dan. That means you, too.” 

“Thanks, Big Cat,” He answered. 

Brian leaned forward to kiss him too. “We’re going to be okay. Ready to fight, Danny Sexbang?” 

Dan nodded, grinning. “Let’s do it.” 

The nine hours doesn’t last long enough, but they manage to get the job done. They all suited up, Danny’s usual outfit now complete with a blue-spray-painted leather neck-brace to protect him against darts. With a finishing click, Holly pushed the go-pro into the updated segment in her helmet. “There. No matter what happens today, we expose these shady bitches.” 

Arin took a deep breath and addressed the group. “Alright, everyone, this is it. This could be the biggest fight we’ve ever been in. I believe in us,” He told the group, deadly serious. Then, he took out his phone. “Siri, take us to the Fuck Den.” 

“Getting directions to Fuck Den - Home,” his phone announced. 

“Sick, light traffic. Let’s go.” 

Fifteen minutes later, the arrived at the location- an abandoned warehouse, flanked by around forty WENDYS agents waiting at the door. 

Brian motioned to everyone to duck down in the car, which was parked a little ways away from the warehouse. “Alright, we should sneak in and see if we can’t get the upper-” 

An agent knocked on the window. Brian put his face in his hands. Holly gingerly rolled down the window. “Yes?” 

The agent, a lanky and awkward young woman, smiled sheepishly. “You’re here for the deal, so you might as well follow the terms of it before we terminate the other Creators.” 

Holly gave her a polite smile. “We’ll be right out.” 

Begrudgingly, the Grumps followed the prompting of the World’s Elite agents, entering the warehouse through the front door. Thankfully, none of their gear was taken, but no one was certain whether that was a sign of mercy or a sign that World’s Elite was confident they could take them down. 

“Creators,” A well-decorated agent called from the front of the warehouse. “Follow me.” 

Jack and Vernon took each other’s hands. 

They’re treating us like Creators. When they made deals with the Grumps before, it was always “Grumps” and “you guys” and our names. If they’re calling us by Creators, they didn’t give one fuck about how they treated us. 

The man stepped to the side, revealing Barry, Matt, Ryan, and Kevin- all four tied down and gagged, surrounded by easily three hundred guards. “So, the deal.” 

Arin swallowed, saying, “What do you want?” 

“We’ve put a lot of time and research into our Editor project, which is what has allowed us to perfect our control over subjects like your Singer.” 

“Danny,” Brian corrected. 

“Your Singer,” the agent replied disrespectfully. 

Oh, fuck WENDYS. 

“While the Editors are useful in causing destruction of rogue and dangerous Creators like you all and ensuring the public is reminded of the dangers you pose-” 

“You think you’re so fucking certain of who we are and what we are,” Arin spat. “That you’ll brainwash innocent kids to hunt us down, and we’re dangerous?” 

The agent ignored him. “We need a Creator who can help to heal the damage that you’ve caused. One that we can easily monitor and manage so that the public begins to trust the World’s Elite again.” 

“Cut to the chase!” Ross shouted impatiently, raising a blaster towards the agent. 

The hundreds of other agents raised their weapons at him. Ross groaned and lowered his own weapon. 

“Your Singer for your Editors. Four for one. It’s a more than generous trade.” 

The Grumps immediately fought back. 

“No! Never, no deal!” Suzy screamed. 

“Fuck your deal!” Holly screamed in agreement. 

Arin didn’t say anything, he just aimed and fired. 

In the same millisecond, the agents did the same, sending hundreds of bullets flying. 

Danny took a deep breath and sang a long, piercing, “Wait!” 

The bullets, both metal and drawn, hang in the air. Brian couldn’t help but think about how it sounds like something from high school musical as everyone freezes in place. 

Danny shook his head at the Writer’s intrusion but he knew if he said anything about it, the spell would be broken and he’d watch everyone he loves die. Instead, he focused on what he wanted to say. 

“I know you’re going to hate this,” He continued, letting him fall into the lyrical pattern he understood best. The stillness of the room around him did nothing to calm his anxiety, but it’d be enough to get this out. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. 

I know you all want to protect me forever.  
I appreciate it, I really do,  
But who’s going to protect all of you?”

He stopped, covering his mouth to stifle a hysteric laugh. “I’m terrible, that’s so bad, and the rhyme was so awkward-” 

Suddenly, time restarts, and the bullets begin to fly. 

“Okay, okay!” He sang, holding up his hands and taking a shaky breath before diving into a verse. 

“This is a stupid decision.  
I know.  
I’m not planning on kidding myself,  
Especially not with my last song.  
My requiem for my own life.  
It’s a bad plan, but this is all I have.  
These people, the Grumps…” 

Danny trailed off, staring down the man from earlier, who still was holding a gun to Barry’s head. He remembered how many times he’s felt like he was staring down that same barrel, that same fate, and pushed on.

“I’ve never had a family like them before.  
I’ve never had a family before,  
Not that I can remember, anyway,  
After all these years apart.  
I was nine when my powers showed.  
I was nine when my mother pushed me out the door.  
I was nine when my father cried  
As they told me to run for my life.  
I didn’t even understand it- how could I?  
Here was this great big world, this massive place,  
With no room for me in it?  
I was lucky to survive.  
Playing pretend was survival. 

I acted like I belonged until I forgot I didn’t.  
I’ve been so many kids, so many sons  
So many names that weren’t my own.  
But I could never understand,  
This great big world, this massive space,  
How could it have no room for me?  
How could I be born to not belong,  
Doomed to play a role but never myself.  
No curtain call, no after party,  
Just the role of a lifetime. 

And I never thought it’d change.  
I kept running, changing lives every few months.  
Until…” 

Danny whipped around, quickly finding Brian and meeting eyes with him. Danny smiled.

“Until I ran into a shitty club in Downtown New York,  
Until I ran into you, and you saw right through me.  
You’ve always seen right through me, Brian.  
You’ve always known what I was thinking.  
And on that night, you saved my life.  
And on that night, I met the first love of my life. 

And for the first time, I actually belonged.  
I was so many people, so many men.  
But for once, my name was my own.  
And all my running finally made sense.  
This great big world, this massive space,  
How could it have no room for me?  
How could I be born to not belong?  
This was the role meant for me.  
No curtain call, no after party,  
Just the role of a lifetime. 

I’m flighty, and overeager  
And too driven, and impulsive,  
But you had my back.  
You risked everything for me.  
All of you, risked everything for me.  
For the moment you found me in that truck,  
You gave everything to save my life,  
And you gave me the best year I ever had.  
Can you imagine?  
Speaking out in a voice that’s your own?  
Reading how you inspire people by speaking your mind?  
Because there was a place for us.  
Because we built this home that is our own. 

And I got to love genius Suzy.  
To love forever creative Ross.  
To love eternally driven Vernon.  
To love unrelenting Jack.  
To love Arin’s heart-on-his-sleeve.  
To love Holly’s never-ending fight  
To love Barry’s eternal smile  
And love Brian’s silent love.  
I had friends- Matt and Ryan  
People we could laugh with  
People we could be normal with.” 

Danny stared ahead, looking right at the four Editors. He knew what he was doing.

And I know I have a place where I belong.  
And I know I’d do anything to keep it.  
But I know these four in front of me,  
I know they belong here too.  
I love you all.  
I’m sorry, but I know what I have to do.”

Dan walked forward, knocking the frozen bullets out of the air with ease, being careful to make sure he didn’t miss any. He walked right up to the agent that seemed to be leading the show, that asshole, and stopped just a few feet in front of him. He glared at him. “I’m making the deal,” He said, holding out his hand and ending the song. “If you leave them alone, I’m all yours.” 

The agent shook his hand. 

Time unfroze, and the agents began forcing the Grumps out the open doors to the warehouse. 

“Just go with them, get out of here!” Dan yelled as an agent pushed him in a different direction, peeling off the neck-brace Holly had made. 

“DAN!” 

“NO, STOP! GIVE HIM BACK!” 

“DAN!!” 

Another group of agents followed through with the deal, freeing the group of Editors and forcing them out the door. The same awkward agent from early prepped a needle and plunged it into Dan’s neck. Dan yelled out, “I love you!” before the light faded away from his eyes and he obediently walked away from the Grumps without looking behind him. 

The doors to the warehouse slammed shut behind the Grumps as they were forced out back into the night. 

“I can force it open!” Suzy cried, sending an army of her bugs forward, but they froze when they heard the helicopter. They turned to see where it was, but it was already too late- Dan was currently flying far, far away from their grasp. 

It was no use. He was gone. 

Holly let out a scream, ripping off her helmet and throwing it to the ground. “No!” She sobbed out. 

Barry pulled her into a hug and ignored the fact that he was openly crying. “He saved us.” 

Everyone collapsed into a hug, holding onto each other desperately. They knew that WENDYS was watching, but no one gave one fuck. Danny was theirs, even if just to mourn. 

Holly stared blankly ahead at her helmet where it was discarded on the ground, the blank lense of the go-pro lodged in the front compartment glinting in the moonlight. 

“Oh my god,” She whispered. “I was recording the entire thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is written as a part of the 2017 Game Grumps Big Bang! 
> 
> Big Bang tumblr: gamegrumps-bigbang
> 
> My artist's tumblr: medibooty
> 
> My mixer's tumblr: enbygrumps, starfleetau
> 
> My tumblr: fricknerd
> 
> Come talk Creator!AU with me if you feel like it, but definitely check out all the wonderful people involved with my fic and with all the other wonderful fics! I had a great time being a part of this big bang, so thank you all for the wonderful opportunity.


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